the other winchester brothers
by pinkhairedharry
Summary: Dean's not the oldest son of John and he's always known it. They just found out Sam's not the youngest either. It's been twenty two years since Dean last saw his big brother and neither of them had met the youngest but that's about to change
1. Chapter 1

Title: The Other Winchester Brothers

Author: pinkhairedharry

Summary: Dean's not the oldest son of John and he's always known it. They just found out Sam's not the youngest either. It's been twenty two years since Dean last saw his big brother and neither of them had met the youngest but that's about to change even if they have to knock their dad out in the process.

Disclaimer: I don't own any recognizable characters. I'm just playing with in their sandbox. This is the only time I will put in the disclaimer that doesn't mean I'm claiming ownership it just means I'm lazy. :P

AN: here's another plot bunny that just won't leave me alone. This is AU for Supernatural during the last episode of season 1. They aren't hit by the semi. They get to the hospital and are released a few days later with John on crutches. BtVS is cannon to season 7 but not for the comics or books. The time line for BtVS hasn't changed. This story is set in current time so the Scoobies are thirtyish. I'm taking liberties with ages assuming that most of them graduated at age 17 or 18 in 1999. The supernatural time line has been pushed forward with season 1 happening in 2011-2012 time-frame. Adam is a few years younger than in cannon. He's fourteen in this story.

Chapter 1

John was sitting in the back seat of the impala with his leg up while his sons talked to each other ignoring his existence. They had been giving him the silent treatment for a week and a half by this point and it was getting ridiculous. The last time they had spoken to him had been to ask for the addresses of their brothers. He honestly didn't know where his oldest had moved to after his home town had collapsed nine years ago but Sam and Dean were angry enough not to believe him. Hell the only reason he knew Alex was even alive was because he'd run into Jessica Harris about a month after the collapse and she'd told him that Alex had contacted her and let her know that he was alive. She hadn't known where he was, where he was going and he hadn't left any contact information either so he truly had no idea where his oldest was.

He had at least known where his youngest lived. That had stopped the yelling and been the beginning of the let's ignore our asshole of a father stage they were currently in. And okay he kind of deserved it but he hadn't actually known about Adam's existence until after Sam had left for Stanford. He should have told Dean but damn it he was only human. Kate had made him promise to keep Adam away from Hunting before she would even let him meet Adam four years ago. He had let Adam be a child because he had a loving mother to care for him but John was mentally kicking himself for not at least teaching the basics.

With Alex it had been different. John had had him every summer until Mary died. Eight year old Alex had been brought to Lawrence by his mother for Mary's funeral. It had been the last time John had seen his oldest son. He'd been so focused on learning everything he could about the supernatural and trying to take care of Sam and Dean that he just couldn't handle having Alex as well that first summer and the next year hadn't been any easier. Eventually Alex had stopped asking to visit, Dean had stopped asking for his big brother and John had signed over custody to Tony Harris. By the time the boys were eleven, seven and three years old respectively Alex had become a taboo subject in the Winchester family. Sam had completely forgotten his oldest brother while Dean had kept silent.

Azazel had taunted them with the fact that his other sons were even more vulnerable because they had no way of knowing what was after them and John hadn't taught them how to protect themselves. It wasn't just Adam and Alex in danger either. Alex could have a wife and kids by now for all John knew. That thought was eating him up inside.

The impala was currently parked across the street from the Milligan home in a quiet suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. They were currently waiting in the car with the windows rolled down for Adam or his mother to get home. They'd been parked there for about an hour before John spotted Adam and a group of girls walking toward the Milligan residence. The girls were surrounding Adam, one in each side of him two in front and two behind him. They were laughing and horsing around but all six girls were paying attention to their surroundings. "That's Adam walking with those girls," announced John.

"Well damn, little brother's got game," joked Dean. The girls were a mix of different races. One of the girls was black, one was Asian, one was Latina and the other three were white. Even the three white girls were diverse in looks, one was a red head, one was blonde and the last was a brunette. All six were adorable though.

"Um, is it just me or are those girls a little too aware of their surroundings. They kinda look like they're Adam's protection detail or something," stated softly Sam.

The pretty little black girl with wild ebony curls next to Adam said something that caused Adam to stop and look straight at the impala. Adam recognized the impala and his dad in the back seat but had no idea who the guys in the front were and with the way his week had been going he wasn't going to get anywhere near that car without a detailed explanation of who they were.

Adam stayed where he was but called out, "Hey Dad, what are you doing here? And who's that with you?"

"At least he's smart enough to stay away from strangers," muttered Dean as he and Sam got out of the car. Dean walked around to the trunk, opened it, grabbed a pair of crutches, closed the trunk and handed them to John.

The girl that had informed Adam of their presences snorted while the brunette giggled in response to Dean's words. Three demons had tried to kill him before he'd learned what most five year olds already knew, stranger equals danger. Adam was their friend but he was denser than a brick sometimes.

"They're your older brothers, Dean and Sam. They wanted to meet you so we came to visit," answered John as he levered himself out of the car and leaned on the crutches. "You think we can talk inside?" The alone part was implied.

"Adam's supposed to come home with us because Aunt Kate has to work a double shift tonight and there's been a couple of attempted abductions in the area and she doesn't want Adam staying home alone. We're just stopping to let Adam get some clothes before we go home. You're welcome to come with but Dad's a real worry wart and if we go home with out Adam we'll probably get grounded and I really don't want to get grounded because we have a dance on Friday and I can't go if I'm grounded. Mom and Dad won't mind if you come over. They'd want to meet you all anyways," babbled the brunette.

John's eyes looked a little glazed after that. Sam had managed to follow most of her babbling but even he was looking a bit dazed at the information overload. Dean just stared in awe at the girl that hadn't even paused to breathe during that award worthy babble.

"I think you broke them," stated Adam totally unfazed by his friend's babble.

The other girls laughed while the brunette looked sheepish.

"I thought Sammy could babble but that was amazing," offered Dean shaking off his awe at her ramble.

"That was nothing, you should see Dad and our aunts, they're like babbling gods," offered the black girl with a grin.

"Who are all of you?" asked Dean before adding, "Because calling you girls one through six in my head is getting a bit annoying."

"I'm Niaira," said the black girl, "These are my sisters, Dylan the babbler, the blonde is Alayna, the red head is Ariel, Camila is the other brunette and last but not least is Kyoko."

"You're all sisters?" asked Sam not trying be rude but kinda surprised. You didn't see that kind of multicultural family very often.

"Mom and Dad adopted Niaira when she was seven, Dylan's one of their biological kid and the rest of us are their foster kids," answered Camila with a shrug. People asked that question a lot.

"What happened to your leg?" asked Adam.

"Your brother shot me," answered John truthfully eyeing Sam.

"Why'd ya do that?" asked Alayna.

Sam looked at Dean helplessly.

"Cause Dad was being an ass," answered Dean with a shrug.

Sam face palmed and said, "It was an accident. We were hunting."

Dylan laughed and Niaira elbowed her hard. The three Winchesters frowned at their antics.

"Sorry, its just Niaira shot Dad in the leg with a crossbow two years ago when we were bow hunting and I remember Dad acting the same way afterwards. He kept telling everyone that asked about the crutches that his daughter shot him. It was funny," explained Dylan.

A woman walked up at that moment and asked, "What's the what?"

Dean took a long moment to appreciate the hotness of the woman that had just arrived and whisled. Even Sam couldn't stop himself from checking her out. John snorted at his sons behavior. Sure she was a good looking woman but they didn't need to be so obvious about it.

The woman leered right back and said, "Sorry pretty boy you're not my type. I like my men-"

"Mom!" whined Dylan interrupting her mother, "These are Adam's Dad and brothers. They want to talk to Adam but Dad said we aren't supposed to separate for any reason so we invited them to come home with us and we got a little sidetracked."

"Of course you did. Short stack, did you get your stuff yet?" asked Faith.

"Not yet. We kinda got distracted," answered Adam.

"Go get it before I do," ordered Faith. Adam turned around and raced into the house. He'd known her long enough to know that she'd pick the most embarrassing clothes he owned simply because she was got a kick out of it.

"Short stack?" asked Dean with a grin.

"It was that or poptart, he chose short stack," answered Faith with a shrug.

"I know Kate wouldn't mind if he stays here with us," announced John.

"Probably not but I don't know you and he's supposed to spend the night at our house so that's where he's going to be. I have no problem with you three tagging along but he's coming home with us," countered Faith.

John nodded his head in understanding. To her he was a stranger and he appreciated her looking out for Adam. "I guess we'll follow you then. How far are we from your house?"

Faith grinned and said, "Not far at all, about a five minutes walk. Girls get ta stepping . We'll meet you there." The girls headed home with out complaint. Their mom could handle three guys with both hands tied behind her back. The younger two were pinging their slaydar slightly but it wasn't in a demony way. It was the way that Dad, Aunt Dawn, Aunt Willow and Aunt Cordelia pinged. The way that Talented humans pinged.

After the girls left Faith asked, "Mind if I hitch a ride with you?"

"Sure," answered Dean.

"By the way I'm John and these are my sons Dean and Sam," offered John as they waited for Adam.

"Name's Faith," answered Faith as Adam came back out carrying a backpack.

"Hop in short stack. We're getting a ride in this wicked beauty," stated Faith as she got in the back seat.

"How come I always have to sit bitch?" asked Adam petulantly.

Faith laughed and said, "Because little bitches sit in bitch."

Dean snorted, Sam smiled and John shook his his head at the by play.

Faith directed them to her home and boy were they surprised at the sight that greeted them. They couldn't even see the house. It was surrounded by walls fifteen feet high and the driveway had a wrought iron gate across it. The old fashion kind with spear shaped tips. There was a biometric hand scanner attached to an actual gatehouse.

Dean turned around in his seat to face Faith as he said, "You sure as hell don't look like the kind of lady that would live here."

"Dude, I'm a Boston Southie not a Beacon Hill rich bitch. This is a company property. We live here but we sure as hell don't own the place. Plus there are about thirty of us living here," stated Faith as she reached out the window and placed her hand on the scanner.

The gate opened and they continued on their way. Dean and Sam both shivered as the impala crossed over the property line and shared a look but forgot about the weird sensation they had felt as they got their first look at the place. It wasn't a house at all but a manor, four stories tall and sprawling with a detached garage that could double as a nice sized home.

"Park where ever you want but I'd recommend staying as far away from the mini coop as possible," offered Faith.

Dean parked the impala away from the shinny red mini cooper, they all got out of the car and headed inside. Adam was sent to put his stuff away and to hang out with the rest of the kids while Faith lead his new family members away for questioning.

She led them into a study, plopped herself on the large mahogany desk while they seated themselves. "So...want to tell me why Azazel keeps coming after Adam? We've already had to stop three attempts so don't give me any bull shit."

Sam looked gobsmacked, Dean narrowed his eyes in suspicion and John steadily met her eyes.

"Azazel killed my wife when Sam was a baby and his girl last November so we've been hunting him," answered John looking just as surprised that he told the truth as his sons did.

"What the hell Dad?" yelled Dean.

"Aww don't be yellin' at your pops. He would have told the truth no matter what he tried to say. The room is truth spelled. You don't have to say anything but everything you do say is going to be the truth," offered Faith.

"You a witch?" asked John sending a stand down look to his sons. He was going to give her the benefit of the doubt because she'd been protecting Adam.

"Nah, I'm a Slayer. Red's the super Wicca. She did the truth spell on the room. It comes in handy," answered Faith.

"Does the truth spell work on you or does it just work on people you bring in here?" asked Dean.

"The spell works on every one in the room no exceptions," answered Faith.

"How do we know you're tellin' the truth?" countered Dean.

"Ask me anything you want," replied Faith.

"What's your full name?" asked Dean.

"Faith Fiona Lehane," answered Faith.

"Are you married?" questioned Dean.

"No," replied Faith.

"Why not?" asked Sam.

"My Boytoy has a fear of marriage. Left his fiancee at the alter on their wedding day. She died about a year later," answered Faith.

"How long have you been together?" asked Sam.

"Nine years," answered Faith.

Sam and Dean exchanged a look, they remembered Camila telling them that Dylan was Faith and their dad's biological kid.

"Nine years?" repeated Sam.

"Yeah, we had sex before that but we've only been together for the last nine years," answered Faith.

"You both took care of her?" asked Sam.

"Neither of us had her. We slept together once during high school, I fell in with a bad crowd and ended up in a coma for nine months. He didn't know I was pregnant and I was still coma girl when Dylan was born so she was put in the system. We got lucky and the family that had her was a good one. I woke up a few months later still messed up and freaked out. I thought I'd lost the baby and went a little more off the deep end, ended up in jail for a couple of years. I got myself sorted out while I was there and broke out when a friend needed me. I got a presidential pardon a few months later," explained Faith.

The Winchesters were silent for almost a minute just processing before Dean asked, "How old were you when you got called as the Slayer?"

"Sixteen. Longest living slayer in history as this point. We changed the game though no more one girl in the world bull shit. We got thousands of slayers now. No one fights alone any more meaning the survival rate has gone up," answered Faith.

"You mean that all those girls are slayers? You take them from their families? You force them to fight?" asked Sam.

"Yes, only the ones in bad situations the rest are at our boarding schools voluntarily and go home to their families during summer and winter holidays and after they graduate they can do what they want. A lot of our girls have gone on to college and some of the oldest group have gotten married, started families and have actual careers besides slaying. And for your last question no, if they don't want to fight we don't force them to. We give them the training they need to be able to protect themselves. For the ones that refuse to come at all we send a trained slayer watcher team to keep an eye on them for their protection but otherwise we leave them alone," answered Faith.

"Why are you protecting Adam?" asked John.

"You mean besides the fact that he's an innocent? Short stack's been friends with my daughters since we moved here. He's practically family. When the other kids wouldn't even talk to Niaira because she spoke differently than them, he played with her, stuck up for her and generally made her transition from Africa to Ohio easier. He reminds me of my Boytoy, sometimes denser than a brick but all heart," answered Faith.

"Does Adam know about the supernatural?" asked John.

"Yes, for the past two years and before you ask he doesn't patrol at all. Boytoy's been teaching him how to protect himself though. He's pretty good with a crossbow and staff. He just started learning sword fighting," answered Faith.

"Sword fighting?" asked Dean.

"We deal with corporeal demons, vampires, rogue witches and warlocks for the most part. Beheadings usually work on demons. Bullets just piss off most demons so swords, axes, crossbows and stakes are our go to weapons. And the rocket launcher but we haven't had to use that in a few years. The biblical smoke and possession demons tend to be rare but they're getting uppity lately. We've had more cases involving them this year than the five years before that combined," explained Faith.

"What the hell is your boytoy's name?" asked Dean.

"Xander," answered Faith with a smirk. She'd been waiting for that question since she called him Boytoy the first time. She was a bit surprised it taken them so long to ask.

Dean snorted and asked, "What the hell kind of name is Xander?"

"Short for Alexander. He went to high school with a Buffy, a Harmony, an Aura and an Aphrodesia so really not that weird," defended Faith.

Before the Winchesters could ask his last name the door to the study opened and a little boy stumbled in with tear tracks framed expressive brown eyes and a bloody shirt held to his nose. The little boy, that couldn't have been more than seven or eight, looked a pitiful mess. Dean and Sam winched in sympathy for the kid.

"Mommy," cried the boy. "We were playing and Emie forgot and I hit the wall but it was an ak'cident Mommy."

Faith had gone into mama nurse mode as soon as she'd seen the tear tracks and blood. She pulled a first aid kit out of the desk, grabbed an ice pack wrapped it with a hand towel before setting it aside and scooping up the boy. She set him on the desk and pulled the wadded up shirt away from his face to check the damage. The bleeding had already stopped and his nose wasn't broken so she grabbed a few moist towelettes and gently cleaned him up.

John's heart skipped a beat painfully when he got his first look at the boy's face. John heard a sharp intake of breath from his left that he assumed was Dean noticing the same resemblance that had stolen his breath.

After JD was cleaned off Faith held the towel wrapped ice pack to his nose and said, "Hold that there until I tell you to stop and don't move."

"Okay Mommy," replied JD.

"Where's your dad?" asked Faith.

"Trying to get Emie to stop crying. It was an ak'cident and she said sorry and then she started crying cause my nose was bleeding and I tried to make her not cry 'cause I'm okay its just a little booboo but she kept 'pologizing and crying and I didn't want her to cry any more so I got Daddy because Daddy always knows how to stop the crying," answered JD.

Faith nodded at her son in understanding before asking, "You mind watching JD while I go check on them?"

"Sure, no problem," answered Dean.

"Make sure he keeps the icepack on his nose. The little shit's sneaky," added Faith just before she left the study.

"Who are you?" asked JD.

"I'm Dean," answered Dean. He pointed to Sam and said, "He's my little brother Sam."

"My name's Jesse Dean and I have a little brother too but his name is Jackson. I like being a big brother, don't you?" asked JD.

"Yep," replied Dean with a smile. "I heard you've got a lot of sisters too."

"Uh huh, I got lots of sisters. Dylan, Niaira, Alayna, Camila, Kyoko and Ariel are older than me. Emie's younger than me. Tara and Janna are twins and younger than me but they my half sisters because Daddy's their daddy but Aunt Willow and Aunt Kennedy are their mommies. Do you have any sisters?" asked JD.

"Not that I'm aware of," answered Dean sending a narrowed eyed look at his father.

"Poor you. Sisters are cool. Mine take me and Jackson to the park all the time and they help me when I ask and they love me no matter what," announced JD with dimpled grin before putting the icepack back on his nose.

"That sounds nice," said Sam.

"How old are ya JD?" asked Dean.

"I'm eight, how old are you?" countered JD.

"I'm twenty seven," answered Dean.

JD looked at Sam waiting for his answer.

"I'm twenty three," answered Sam.

JD smiled at Dean and said, "I'm four years older than my little brother too."

"You know what?" asked Dean.

"What?" asked JD.

"You're a very smart kid," replied Dean.

JD smirked and said, "Of course. It's the age of the geek, baby."

The Winchesters laughed. Dean glanced behind himself when he heard a soft laugh and locked eyes with the man that had to be Xander. He was holding a little brunette girl that Dean guessed was little Emie if the puffy red eyes were anything to go by. Neither of them were making a sound. Dean sent Xander a questioning look, Xander responded with a smile and a jaunty little wave before motioning for Dean to keep quiet. JD, John and Sam hadn't noticed them and he wanted it to stay like that for a little longer.

"What do you do for fun around here besides going to the park?" asked John.

"Daddy's makin' a boat in his wood-shop and he lets me help. We also have a paint ball course in the backyard. We play guys vs gals it's fun," answered JD.

John thought the paint ball course was a very useful training tool for the kids and wished he had that when Sam and Dean were young. Sam probably would have complained a hell of a lot less.

"That doesn't sound very fair. There are a lot more girls than boys from the sound of things," said Sam.

"Its not fair for the girls because Uncle Connor's a master at tracking, stealth and evasion, Uncle Graham's an Army Ranger, me and Adam are sharp shooters and Daddy's a mastermind. He says losing is character building but he won't play on their team so I think he just likes winning," answered JD with a crooked grin.

Sam snorted in amusement while John and Dean chuckled.

"What's your name Mister? Cause Dean didn't tell me who you were," asked JD.

"He's your Grandpa John," announced Xander from the doorway. "Dean and Sam are your uncles and so is Adam apparently."

John and Sam jerked toward Xander in surprise.

"Oh. Nice ta meet ya Grandpa. Daddy do I have to call Adam, Uncle Adam now?" asked JD.

"Nah, but you might want to call him that just to see how he reacts. It should be pretty funny," answered Xander.

"Can I go do that now?" asked JD mischievously.

"How's your nose feeling?" questioned Xander while the little girl tensed up in his arms.

"Cold but otherwise its fine. See," said JD as he removed the icepack.

"Its all better Emie. Come help me prank Uncle Adam?" asked JD as he tugged on her hand.

Little Emie's expression looked torn as she glanced between the men that she'd just learned were family and her big brother wanting to play a prank on their favorite target.

"Go play with Jesse. Your grandpa and uncles aren't going anywhere," offered Xander as he set her on her feet.

"Come on Emie, that's Dad's 'the grown ups have to talk' voice," said JD as he pulled her away.

"Don't leave," yelled Emie as the door to the study closed behind them.

Xander took a seat on the desk and the study was quiet for a full minute as they just stared at each other.

"So..." started Sam only to trail off as he didn't know what to say.

"Faith's really hot," announced Dean.

Xander nodded in agreement and grinned. Sam sent Xander and Dean a funny look. Xander shrugged and asked, "What?"

"That doesn't bother you?" asked Sam in return.

"Dude, admit it even you were thinking that and its not like he said he wanted to have sex with her," answered Xander, but he did raise a questioning eyebrow at Dean.

Dean raised his arms in a placating gesture and said, "Not after I learned she's your baby mama, but you ever break up yeah probably."

"Dean! What the hell is wrong with you?" asked Sam while John cuffed Dean upside the head.

Dean looked slightly mortified at the words that had just come out of his mouth and said, "The truth spell's still in effect."

Xander laughed, decided to spare the rest of Dean's dignity and changed the subject, "So Adam and Azazel?"

"Azazel killed Mary," stated John.

"Oh. Well that explains a lot. You know how to kill him? Because other than an exorcism that'll only send him back to hell we haven't found much on getting rid of his kinda demons," asked Xander.

"We have a gun made by Samuel Colt that can kill demons. But we only have one bullet left," answered John.

"I take it that it has to be a kill shot?" questioned Xander.

"Yeah," answered Dean. The fact that it would kill the helpless host as well was left unsaid but Xander got the message.

"I've go an idea but I need to see the bullet," announced Xander.

The three Winchesters exchanged looks. They were wary of handing the Colt to any one. Sam and Dean hadn't known John was possessed until they were already in the cabin. Xander could be possessed by Azazel right now for all they knew.

Xander seeing the shared hesitance pulled the collar of his shirt down far enough for all three to see a tattoo over his heart and said, "After the third time I got possessed Willow, Dawn and Giles brainstormed and came up with this. Its my very own anti-possession tattoo. Made with blessed ink and mojo'd for my protection."

"Third possession?" asked John in surprise. Faith had said they didn't have much contact with the incorporeal demons.

"You know how it is. Crazy shaman does a ritual trying to absorb a Primal Hyena Spirit that I happen to walk into unsuspectingly during a field trip to the zoo sophomore year. Former demon summoning current chaos mage turned everyone into their costumes for Halloween trying to get his former friend's attention cause he was lonely. And last but not least, actually I'm not mentioning that one...No really I'm not talking about it. There is no power on earth that will make me tell you about that horrible incident."

Faith snorted causing everyone but Xander to jump. She was about to speak when Xander interrupted, "You tell them and I'll be sleeping on the couch for the next month."

She pouted at him but kept her mouth shut. Xander was perfectly capable of with holding sex and that was never fun for her.

Dean removed the gun from the small of his back, took the last remaining bullet out and handed it over to his older brother.

Xander closed his right eye and studied the bullet with his left. After two minutes of careful scrutiny he opened his right eye, nodded and said, "Willow can make more bullets."

"Ya know I still find that creepy," commented Faith.

"What did you just do and why is it creepy?" asked Sam.

Faith sent a questioning look at Xander. He grimaced slightly before nodding. "Boytoy's left eye is a prosthetic. The First Evil's right hand man crushed it with his thumb almost ten years ago right after calling him The One Who Sees. He got the prosthetic a few months later and noticed he could see stuff out it. Everyone freaked out until Dawnie figured it out."

Sam and John stared at Xander in growing panic while Dean raised an eyebrow in question at him.

"Bloodline Talent," stated Xander.

Dean hummed in understanding while John and Sam exchanged confused looks not noticing Dean's reaction.

"What the hell is a bloodline talent?" asked John.

"It's a supernaturally inclined talent. The actual Talent or Talents depends on which bloodline you have and if you carry more than one. Sometimes the Talent stays dormant for generations, sometimes long enough for the families to entirely forget about it and sometimes every member of a bloodline has an active talent in every generation. Only thing we truly know for a fact is that its not demon induced. Dawn thinks its angelically induced but as we've never come across an Angel of God I'm not holding my breath for conformation. I can see magic out of my left eye socket," explained Xander.

Sam was starting to look hopeful and John still looked confused.

"How does that work exactly? Do you have to close the right or what?" asked Dean calmly but interested at the same time.

Sam and John were now staring at Dean like he'd just grown another head. Dean was taking this too calmly for their liking. They shared a look something was definitely up with him.

"I can see a multicolored translucent overlay on everything when both both eyes are open. It's just the magic visible when I close the right eye and when I close the left I just see the physical world and ghosts. Ghosts I can see with both eyes and let me tell you they're fucking everywhere. Hell there's one in the room with us right now," answered Xander.

Faith smacked Xander's arm after all three Winchesters tensed up and said, "You're an ass. Denis is harmless and he's the only housekeeper we've been able to keep so stay the hell away from him. Anything happens to him and I'll hunt you down and make all three of you my personal slave complete with frilly little french maid uniform."

"Loud and clear sister," answered Dean.

"Okay," agreed Sam.

John nodded and said, "Good help is hard to find."

"Got any other Talents?" asked Dean.

"Why would you think that?" returned Xander.

"You said Talent or Talents earlier and that implies you or some one you know someone has more than one Talent so do you have any other Talents?" questioned Dean.

Sam couldn't stop himself from interrupting, "Why the hell are you taking this so calmly?"

"I already know about Bloodline Talents," answered Dean with blank face.

"They don't know?" asked Xander.

Dean shook his head, "Didn't know how to bring it up."

"How long?" asked Xander.

"Since Mom," answered Dean in a barely there whisper.

Xander exhaled sadly and said, "Damn, no wonder you shut down," remembering how silent Dean had been at his mother's funeral. Dean hadn't made a sound the entire week that Xander had been with them before his mother had taken him home, but he'd clung to Xander the entire time.

"What the hell are you talking about?" asked John.

Dean crossed his arms mulishly and shrugged. Over twenty years of silence had Dean on the defensive. He literally didn't know what to say to the two people that should have noticed but hadn't.

"Dean! Answer me!" ordered John standing and heading toward Dean.

"Why?" stated Dean softly while meeting John's eyes calmly. His tone was completely at odds with what his body language was screaming though. His arms had loosened from their previous position and his feet were braced for a fight.

John froze when he saw Dean's face. The last time he'd seen that face had been after Mary died and Alex had been taken home. Dean had shut down so completely that the doctors had thought he was catatonic. John hadn't known what to do back then and it was baby Sam that had brought four year old Dean out of that state. John stumbled backwards into his seat as breathing became painful.

Sam didn't know what to do. Dean's blank faced stare and monotonous tone had been like a punch to the solar plexus. Dean had only gone blank like that once before in Sam's memory. It was how Dean had looked the entire car ride to the bus station. He'd been too angry to really notice back then but right now his lungs felt like ice and it hurt to breath.

Faith dragged John and Sam out of the room and closed the door behind them while Xander slowly and calmly stepped in front of Dean and spoke, "Dean, breath. Let it out. Breath, come on breath, in...out...in...out...in...out...in...out. Its okay, in...out. You won't hurt me. Block everything else out, focus on me and just breath. in...out...in...out. Just focus on me," by the time Xander had spent ten minutes speaking soothingly Dean was entirely focus on him. His breathing had steadied and even his heartbeat had matched itself to Xander's instead of the chaotic staccato it had been preforming.

"Okay, now we build your shields up properly. Can you feel what I did?" asked Xander.

"Yeah but how do I do that?" asked Dean.

"I teach you, just like I was taught," answered Xander.

In the hallway John and Sam had sunk to the floor.

"What just happened?" asked Sam shakily.

"Overload, Xander will take care of him," answered Faith.

"What's overload?" asked Sam.

"Depends on the Talent. If its one of the Seeing Talents: Overload happens when they just see too much their brains kinda turns to mush because it's not built to withstand the constant onslaught of foreign images. Happened to a friend of Xander's about a decade ago. Though she got better. If its one of the Feeling Talents, it happens when they lose control of their shields and literally get Overloaded by feeling everything on the planet. They can go one of two ways then, suicidal or homicidal, both ways can do a lot of collateral damage. Overload for the Healing Talents happens when there's a lot of wounded and dying people around. Healer loses themselves healing others and either dies or burns out their gift. Those are worst case scenarios though," explained Faith.

"Which Talent does Dean have?" asked John deciding to trust Xander with Dean for now.

"I don't know for sure but if I had to guess I'd say one of the Feeling Talents and a touch of Healing," answered Faith.

"A touch of Healing?" asked Sam.

"Dean's the one that's in charge of patching you two up right?" when they nodded Faith continued, "You should have a lifetime of Hunting scars and you don't. You have a few scars, sure, but not enough for the lives you live. Don't get me wrong he's not a full healer and never will be. But you heal faster and with less scars because Dean's got a touch of Healing Talent. He heals faster then normal humans and so do you when he's around, Xander's the same way. It took us a while to realize that because me and B have been Slayers longer than we've known him. We never quite noticed how fast him, Giles and Willow were healing because in-comparison to us it seemed normal. But they've all had injuries that should have kept them down a lot longer then they did. Plus Dean's the one that had to hold himself back when JD stumbled in bleeding, so yeah, my guess would be a touch of healing."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 3

AN1: AU for Angel as well. Angel's Gang merged with the Scoobies after they all helped take out the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart. Angel and Spike shanshu'd so they're humans but like Connor. Angel still leads a team in LA but none of his original gang are with him. Fred never got taken over by Illyria, she works with Andrew in the slayer tech and research department. Connor's life still got reset with the Reilly's but he always remembered his old life and appreciated the second chance. After he graduated from Stanford he moved to Cleveland. The Scoobies got Cordelia out of her coma and away from Wolfram and Hart. Wesley is a watcher again. Gunn's a watcher as well. Lorne opened a bar in Cleveland because Angel stays away from the Scoobies as much as he can. Lindsey's not dead either but Angel thinks he is and no one's telling him otherwise.

Sam still sitting on the floor looked up at Faith and asked, "This happens a lot?"

"A couple times a year. The ones that are comfortable in the supernatural world usually wander in on their own before they reach the breaking point. The ones that don't know about the night life get pointed in our direction by those in the know when they're looking for answers, sometimes our seers get a vision," Faith's expression turned mournful as she continued, "Not everyone makes it to us or someone else that can teach 'em and sometimes they're so far gone there's nothing we can do but take them out. Talents manifest anywhere from birth to puberty for the most part and never after the age of twenty five so most of them are just scared kids. The lucky ones manifest slowly. They get used to their gifts over time. Most of the seers I've met started with the feeling of deja vu, then dreams, then full out visions day or night. Only one got full blown visions to start with but she didn't develop the Talent on her own. She carried the Talent but it hadn't manifest yet so the PtB just activated it all at once without giving her time to get used to it."

"Exactly how common are Talented people?" asked Sam thinking about the one actual psychic he'd met. Missouri had definitely left an impression. The looks she had sent Dean made a lot more sense now than they did back then. She kept sending him narrowed eyed looks that Sam hadn't paid much attention too because Dean got that look from a lot of people all the time. He should have paid more attention because honestly Dean didn't listen to strangers very often but he had listened to her.

John's thoughts were on Missouri as well but he was wondering why she hadn't mentioned anything about Dean. She'd mentioned Sam's ability but nothing about Dean. Then again she'd told him to talk to both his boys so maybe she had been trying to tell him something.

"They're not common at all but it runs in certain family lines. We've run into a few of the families were everyone was Talented but they mostly keep to themselves. Here in Cleveland, we've got the largest congregation of unrelated Talented people on the planet living within a fifty square mile area so it seems much more common than it actually is. I think we've run into fifteen families in the continental US with us bein' the sixteenth, but there's probably some we haven't found. In Africa the numbers are higher, same for Asia and South America's pretty high as well but we think it's because those places still believe in the supernatural while most of Europe and North America don't," explained Faith.

"Does Adam had any Talent?" asked John. He wasn't sure but he thought they had implied the Talents had come from his own blood line so it reasoned that he did if all three of the older ones did.

"Yeah, he's got Healing Talent in spades. It's one of the reasons we told him about the supernatural. He was staying with us while Kate went on a two week cruise with some of her friends and he went from latent to full blown active in about a day. Xander held him together while Red and Dawn found him a teacher. She lives here and he spends at least five hours a week with her. He's also got a lesser Seeing Talent which basically means he's a crack shot with every long distance weapon he knows how to use," answered Faith.

"Hitting what you aim at is a Talent?" asked John not quite understanding how accuracy was a Talent.

"It's a Talent when they're actually aiming at where the moving target will be by the time the arrow, bullet or paintball gets there. Think about it this way. When he's aiming he's actually seeing where the target will be in the next few seconds. He's seeing a few seconds in advance," answered Faith.

Sam nodded his understanding. Dean did that sometimes as well. Not all the time but he'd seen his brother hit a wendigo at full speed before and a charging werewolf by the light of the moon alone. Sure, Dean could just be that good or he could be seeing a few seconds in the future and not mentioning it. Today was the first time Sam had really noticed his brother. He couldn't even defend himself in his own head. Dean had always been there for him, always tried to make him, no them happy. His first memories all featured Dean protecting him, playing with him and teaching him things. Dean knew pretty much everything about him but did he really know his brother at all. He couldn't even really blame it on Dean either because he'd never actually asked and he knew Dean didn't share things without being asked and goaded into it.

John was feeling lost. He'd gotten so stuck on finding Mary's killer that he'd forgotten to be a father to any of his son's. Adam was still a kid, he hadn't messed that up to badly yet but Dean had been hiding a large part of himself for a very long time. Sam, well, he'd dropped the ball and Dean had picked up the slack, never once complaining about it as a kid or an adult and that hadn't been fair to either one of them. He'd lost any right to Alex when he signed over the custody papers to Tony Harris, hell even before that a card at Christmas and his birthday for two years hadn't been any better. Alex was a grown man with a family of his own and he was counting his blessing that they hadn't just thrown him out on his ass.

"What, um, abilities does Alex have besides the seeing magic and ghosts thing?" asked John. He knew Azazel had fed Sam his blood that night so he wasn't sure if Sam was Talented or Tainted or both at this point but definitely had some sort of Seeing Talent. Adam had Healing and a slight Seeing Talent. If Faith's guess was right Dean had a Feeling and slight Healing.

Faith looked a little sheepish as she said, "He's got a touch of Healing and Seeing that are useful but pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. You'll have to ask him about his main Talent yourself cause I've been banned from telling people."

Faith stood, offered Sam and John a hand up and said, "Xander knows what he's doing but they'll be a while. Re-establishing shields is time consuming. Until they're done you might as well meet the rest of the family." They took her hands and she pulled them up. "The kids are having a Halo tournament in the game room."

As Faith lead them to the the game room they kept stopping to greet the other people that lived there and get introduced to them. Faith introduced them as Adam's father and brother so no one would freak out on them while Xander was busy with Dean. Buffy waved cheerfully at them in passing. Dawn was in a rush and nearly ran into a door while she checked Sam out. Spike glared at John and walked away without giving a reason for his behavior. Connor had given John a funny look before shrugging at Faith and following Spike. Fred had babbled at them for two minutes straight before she excused herself and ducked back into what Andrew had dubbed the bat cave. Rona, Vi and Caridad had pretty much ignored John as they blatantly checked Sam out. He blushed and fidgeted nervously while the three shared identical smirks. Faith called them off when Sam turned his 'please help me I'm a lost puppy' eyes on her.

About half way to the game room and about ten minutes later, Willow recognized John, tilted her head, narrowed her eyes and asked, "What are you doing here? Did you come to visit Xander? Is this Sam? He sure got big. Where's Dean? Is he here too? Xander's missed you guys. That wasn't very nice of you to stop visiting. He was really upset when you stopped including him in the family. He's okay with it now but when we were little you really hurt him badly. Don't hurt him again. And if you want to be apart of our family that's fine. The kids deserve to know their grandpa but if you let our kids get attached to you and you bail on them like you did Xander, I will hunt you down, I will find you and I'll introduce you to my favorite shovel!"

John finally placed the red head as little Willow who'd been Alex's best friend since the day they had met. He'd met her a few times while picking up Alex for the summers before Mary had died. She'd called Alex, Xander, the name that he'd evidently chosen to go by. He froze as he remembered what JD had said about his half sisters because Aunt Willow and Aunt Kennedy were their moms. She said the kids no division of Faith and Xander's or her and Kennedy's just our kids.

"Red?" questioned Faith.

"Huh?" responded Willow even though she kept her attention on John.

"That's why our kids get in trouble at school," said Faith.

Willow looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Shovel speeches," answered Faith.

"I thought it was because of the incident with the principal's car, the exorcism attempt on the cheerleading coach and the science lab blowing up," countered Willow nonchalantly.

Faith shrugged and said, "I'm still going with the shovel speeches because Jesse, Mary, Tara and Janna had nothing to do with those and they still get in trouble."

Willow shook her head and went on her way before she even got a response from John.

"Hey, Red?" called Faith to Willow before she turned the corner.

Willow paused and yelled, "What?"

"We're talking about this later," said Faith meaning the fact that Tony Harris wasn't Xander's father and neither of them had mentioned any thing about it.

"I know," replied Willow as she turned the corner. She knew it wasn't her place to talk about Xander's parental situation but she also knew she should have gotten Xander to explain it to Faith at least. An unknown father and brothers popping up was kinda surprising.

"Mary?" repeated Sam.

Faith snorted and asked, "That's the part you're stuck on? Not the death threat or the trouble the kids get into?"

Sam shrugged and said, "Dad gets death threats from pretty much everyone."

"Xander named her Mary Joyce and called her MJ which turned into Em which got turned into Emie," answered Faith. She hadn't known why he'd chosen Mary and until now she'd honestly thought he just wanted to call her MJ like Spiderman's girlfriend. Naming her after two women he'd cared about and lost was definitely a better reason though. "Makes a lot more sense now that I know she was named after your wife and Mrs. S."

"Who's Mrs. S?" asked Sam while John processed everything he'd just learned about his oldest.

"Buffy and Dawn's mom, she died about ten years ago. She had an aneurysm after getting a brain tumor removed. She was a good woman, kinda just took everyone in and mothered them. Losing her was hard on all of them," answered Faith stopping in front of the door to the game room. "You ready to meet all the kids?"

John nodded but Sam looked a little green.

"Not really. Dean's the one that's good with kids," answered Sam even though he'd already met most of the kids. But this time he was meeting them as an uncle and he didn't want to be the uncle no one liked. He knew Dean would get the cool uncle slot. "Have any advice?"

"Three things you should know. Number one is grow a pair because any one of them sense weakness they'll eat you alive," warned Faith, "The second thing is treat them the same way you'd treat Dean or me. Don't talk down to them. Don't treat 'em like babies, not even Jackson. He's four not stupid. He'll get even. And the last thing is actually the most important; every one of those kids are ours. We don't treat them any different. We've had custody of Alayna, Kyoko, Ariel and Camila since before Jackson was born and we're working on full adoptions but we've got some majorly messed up adoption laws in this country. Ryan and Wyatt are Buffy and Graham's twins and they're not here right now but they'll probably call you Grandpa John and Uncle Sam anyways so just roll with it."

John stood there blinking dazedly at Faith. All his brain kept repeating was: eleven grandkids plus one teenage son meant there were twelve kids currently in that room and more than half were teenagers. He hadn't done well with Sam as a teenager and the less said about teenage Dean the better. Sure, he hadn't had any problems with teenage Dean other than the sheer amount of girls he'd slept with but he hadn't actually been there much at the time either.

"I think I broke him," announced Faith to Sam, waving a hand in front of John's face.

"Nah, he's just showing his age. You know how old folks get when the dementia starts kicking in," offered Sam teasingly. His father's mini freak-out actually made him feel better about talking to his nieces, nephews and little brother.

That smart ass comment broke John out of his brain freeze. He glared at Sam but said, "Let's get on with it. I've got a lot of grandkids to meet."

Faith opened the door and a blast of sound exploded forth. The kids were going all out at four separate gaming consoles. Those not actually playing were cheering on the ones they wanted to win. Niaira and Adam were teamed up with Alayna and Jackson cheering them on. Jesse and Ariel were the second team with Kyoko and Emie cheering for them. Dawn and Connor were the third team which confused the hell out of Sam and John because Dawn had passed them earlier going the opposite way but not coming back. They had Camila and Spike cheering them on. The last team consisted of a small man sucking on a lollypop and Dylan with a pair of read headed twins that had to be Tara and Janna cheering them on.

~~Line break~~

Back in the study Xander and Dean were talking.

"So, that happen before?" asked Xander when Dean was firmly back in control.

Dean shrugged and said, "Never that badly before."

"Probably never been this close to a Hellmouth before. They mess everything up until you get used to them. You should be fine now. How do you normally deal with it?" asked Xander.

"Alcohol and a willing partner usually does the trick," answered Dean. He'd figured that out as teenager and it hadn't failed him yet but when he was a kid he'd focus completely on Sammy, block everything else out and slowly rebuild his walls. Now and days when he got overwhelmed he found the nearest bar, a willing partner and was good as new by the next morning. It was fun too.

Xander nodded his head in understanding. That was kinda how he and Faith got together in the first place. Wandering around Africa alone had been out of the question and Faith had volunteered after her and Robin sizzled out. Xander had actually been relieved Faith had volunteered before Buffy and Willow could double team him out of going. He had needed the break from the other Scoobies as much as the rest did. Bad decisions, miscommunications and hard feelings had time to fade while they were apart and their relationships were stronger now for the time spent apart. Xander hadn't even consciously known about his Talents. Years of subconscious suppression on the planet's most active Hellmouth hadn't been enough to prepare him for Africa though.

About a month into their travels he'd been overwhelmed by the sheer misery of a refugee camp. He'd gone catatonic and the only way Faith had been able to get him out of his catatonic state had been to screw him senseless. He always managed to keep it together when they had a foe to fight or when they managed to find girls but the times when they were in major cities, refugee camps and war zones saw him withdrawing into himself. They'd gone on like that for four months before a shaman had taken pity on the frustrated man and taught him how to shield himself.

He had assumed they would go back to sleeping alone but he'd been wrong. They'd tried for a few days but neither of them had been able to sleep alone after four months of sharing a bed when one was available or a sleeping bag when one wasn't. It wasn't the convenience of both of them just being there either. Africa, for all its majestic beauty, was a harsh place and they'd spent a lot of time just talking to break the silence. They actually had more than just great sex going for them.

"Sex is the best way to block everything else out and center yourself if you have time to spare and aren't in the middle of a patrol or something. But what I showed you can be used any time without any one the wiser," stated Xander.

"Useful trick," said Dean.

AN2: Please vote for Dean's paring and Sam's pairing. I'm pretty much open to everyone but Buffy and Willow. They're both taken. Vi, Rona, Caridad, any of the activated potentials, Dawn, Cordelia, Spike, Connor, Jo, the Angels that will eventually pop in and a few Talented oc's that haven't been introduced yet are eligible for either of them. I'm not against threesomes but I won't be writing porn either. I suck at it so don't expect it. Any pairing for the boys won't start that soon anyways. Sam needs closure for Jess and Dean's a mess right now but I wanted you all to get the chance to choose. If a male gets chosen for either pairing I'll edit the story to add the slash icon but as of right now the story is still just het with a side of femslash. That turned out longer than I meant but please vote.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

AN: voting is still open for Dean, Sam and John's pairings.

"Okay, what do we do now?" asked Dean.

"Umm, want to see my man cave?" asked Xander in response.

"I meant about the Azazel situation because he's not going to stop coming after us, but you have an actual man cave?" when Xander nodded Dean grinned and added, "Hell yeah."

Xander stood up and walked in front of the bookshelf behind the desk. He pulled on a book entitled Man Caves for Every Man and the entire three foot section swung forward and revealed a narrow spiral staircase.

Dean beamed like a little kid in a candy store and said, "Holy shit you have a fucking secret lair," as he followed Xander down.

"Not really secret because everyone but Andrew knows it's here. You have to swear you won't tell Andrew," pleaded Xander as they arrived at a door with a palm scanner.

"Who the hell's Andrew and what the hell's wrong with him?" asked Dean.

"Andrew is a valid member of the Scooby gang now and he means well but there's only so much of him any of us can stand. Think of the biggest nerd you know multiply the annoyance factor, because of the constant Star Wars comparisons, by twelve, reduce it by a forth, for the cooking skill, raise it to the third power, because of the unending talk of redemption then cut it in half because he does actually know what he's doing and has his uses. He's just too big of a geek to bring down here because he'll try to decorate or something equally bad," explained Xander.

"I swear I won't tell him," promised Dean.

Xander palmed the scanner and the door opened giving Dean his first look into the man cave. The first thing Dean saw was the rocket launcher mounted to far wall.

"Is that a real rocket launcher?" asked Dean excitedly.

"Yep," answered Xander smugly.

"Where the hell did you get a fucking rocket launcher?" asked Dean.

"I stole it from the Sunnydale army base junior year of high school," answered Xander, grinning at the memory. Sometimes he missed how easily things were ignored in Sunnydale but most of the time he's happy that Cleveland isn't as bad. A seventeen year old kid had walked off with a rocket launcher and they hadn't even bothered to investigate.

The wall that held the rocket launcher held an assortment of other modern-day weapons plus a plastic hand gun. Dean mad a note to ask about the plastic gun because there had to be a reason it was up there. There was a cabinet set with glass doors that ran along the bottom third of the wall. The cabinets held bullets and gun oil and all the other things necessary for all kinds of weapons maintenance.

On the left hand wall there was a large hammer surrounded by other medieval weaponry. Underneath the medieval weapons were wood working tools, whet stones used for sharpening blades and all the other tools you need for maintaining swords, axes, stakes, crossbows and one wicked looking glaive. There was a work bench located there as well. Everything on that wall looked well used compared to the modern day weapons.

The wall with the door had floor to ceiling book cases on the right hand side. Only two of the titles that Dean could see were in English. A quarter of the titles were in Latin and the rest he wasn't even going to take a guess on. On the left side of the door was what looked like a free standing closet.

In the middle of the room there were two couches and two leather armchairs around a coffee table.

On the right hand wall there was a huge painted compilation of people with the words Forget Me Not written on a yellow crayon. Dean didn't need to ask to know that these people were friends and loved ones lost. He was only a bit surprised to see his mother up there on the left end of the center row. The mural had six women, starting with his mother in a row, large and crystal clear, with all of the other people, smaller and less detailed, circled around them with a town in the distance.

"Did you paint this?" asked Dean. It was so detailed and clear that it looked like a photograph but it was also evident that it had been painted on the wall.

"Willow created a spell that turned my memories of them into this. Mama Mary, Joyce, Tara, Anya, Kendra and Jenny were the biggest losses of my life so far but everyone up there was important to me," explained Xander.

Dean nodded but couldn't help asking, "What's up with the yellow crayon?"

"Just a reminder," answered Xander mysteriously.

"That's not an answer," grumbled Dean. He wanted to know what a yellow crayon had to do with a memorial wall. He's done the same thing to Sam hundreds of times and was finally getting a taste in return and he didn't like it.

Xander took a moment to decide if Dean could handle the truth before explaining, "Tara died in Willow's arms after they had just gotten back together. Willow went off the rails on black magic. Turned out Tara was her soul mate and she was literally feeling like she'd been ripped in half. She ended up feeling the worlds pain as well as her own and just wanted to stop all the pain by ending everything. We didn't know how to stop her but I couldn't just let my best friend since the first day of kindergarten end the world without doing something. I found her and managed to talk her down by telling her that I loved her and with the memory of how we first met. First day of school she cried because she broke her yellow crayon and didn't want to tell the teacher. I gave her mine and we've been best friends since. The wall isn't just a reminder of who and what we've lost: Our innocence, our homes, the carefree kids that we'd been. But it's also a reminder of everything we've gained: family, friends, kick ass fighting skills and other stuff ya know?"

"Yeah, I know," replied Dean not regretting asking at all. He could understand doing anything to end the pain even if he'd never admit it. After his mom died he hurt and his dad hurt and Sammy was too young to understand but he cried for mom and everything kept building and he didn't know what to do until John had told him he needed to take care of Sammy. By focusing on Sammy he'd been able to block everything else out.

He also understood that Xander had been implying that he would have stopped her permanently if it he had had too. And by the way his emotions flickered he probably would have taken himself out afterwards. Dean was kinda relieved to see he wasn't the only one that felt that way about someone else, because he'd do the same thing with if it ever came to that.

"What's in the closet?" asked Dean breaking the seriousness that had descended while Xander had spoken.

"Monitors for the security system on the house. The bedrooms, bathrooms and personal work rooms don't have cameras but all the common rooms do as well as the hallways. We also have a bunch set up outside. We get attacked enough that the girls agreed they were necessary," answered Xander as he opened the closet doors.

"Why are they down here?" asked Dean. He agreed that it was smart to have the cameras but having the monitors down here didn't seem like the best idea.

"We can access the feeds from any laptop or computer so there wasn't any reason not to put them here. I like to hang out here when it gets too crazy up there. Plus this way I can keep an eye on the kids without being up there," answered Xander as he pointed to the screen showing a crowded game room.

~~Line break~~

In the game room John and Sam watched as the competition got heated instead of interrupting. All of the players were entirely focused on winning and insults and threats were flying around. Dawn was apparently intent on killing the short man's avatar while Connor kept everyone else off her.

Camila took pity on John and Sam and said, "They have a week's worth of chores riding on this. And Dawn really wants to kill Loki. He's getting a bit insufferable."

"He passed a bit insufferable two week ago. She killed him last week, getting him to stay dead is the problem, bloody wanker," added Spike.

"She really killed him?" asked Sam.

"Yep, but it's hard to get a god to stay dead and doubly so with a trickster," answered Spike with a shrug.

"They're playing Halo with a trickster god?" asked Sam in total disbelief.

"Yeah. He's better company than most of the gods we've had to deal with," answered Spike while Camila and Kyoko nodded. They hadn't met the other gods but seeing as they had been trying to kill their family members back then they had to agree with Spike. As far as gods went Loki wasn't that bad and he actually like their dad.

"Hey, don't equate me to Glory, Illyria or Olaf. I'm much better than they could have ever hoped to be. Two hell gods and a troll god can't compare to the wonderfulness that is me," yelled Loki indignantly while keeping his attention on the screen in front of him.

"Like I said, he's a bloody wanker," repeated Spike.

"%&#%&#" yelled Loki as Dylan let out a sheepish, "Sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

"Did he just curse in symbols?" asked Sam.

"Yeah, he's a god. He does weird things like that," offered Camila.

"I call Jesse as my partner next time," announced Loki pouting petulantly.

"I really am sorry," apologized Dylan.

"No you're not but now you owe me a lemur," responded Loki.

"Where the #$%& am I supposed to get you a lemur from?" asked Dylan. While Dylan was distracted Jesse killed her avatar. "Oh, you little &%$#. Mom! Loki being an *$$&&$$. He distracted me on purpose."

"Language little missy and now we're even," replied Loki.

Faith snorted and asked "What do you want me to do about him?

"Hey, I'm right here and not deaf," commented Loki.

Faith ignored him and continued, "He doesn't stay dead when we kill him and cheating on a video game isn't slay worthy anyways."

John was in a bit of a stupor. His might as well be a daughter in-law and grandkids and youngest son were hanging out with a god and didn't seem to notice how weird that was. Nor did they seem to have any problem insulting the so called god. If little Mary hadn't climbed into his lap and distracted him with childish chatter he'd be a lot more freaked out with the situation than he was. He decided to just roll with it like Faith said. Apparently life in this place was so full of mind-blowing weirdness that you either rolled with it or went crazy. Faith seemed normal enough and other than the death threat Willow hadn't seem too different from her babbling eight year old self. And other than the needed hyperawareness earlier the girls and Adam behaved like normal teenagers as far as he could tell.

Sam was watching everyone interact and couldn't decide if they were nuts or not. They had a swear word censoring god playing video games in their house like he was an annoying relative they couldn't get rid of and no one was actually bothered or freaked out by his presence. The redheaded twins and Jackson went into giggle fits every time he turned a swear word into symbols which gave Sam the impression that was the reason he did it. Loki hadn't bothered to censor Spike at all but Sam had a feeling it had more to do with the glare from Spike that promised pain if he did than Loki's ability to do it. Spike was kind of an enigma within the group as well. He knew that most of the girls were slayers and Adam was a healer. Faith had told them that Dawn was Buffy's sister and Connor was a friend's son but she hadn't told them anything about Spike other than his name and that he was a friend. The man was setting off all of his danger senses. And if Fred's personality hadn't been so different he would have sworn she was Andrea. As of right now he was just overwhelmed by everything and a nap sounded like a great idea.

"You get used to it," offered Dawn softly after her avatar had been killed by Adam. He looked so lost that she couldn't help it.

"Really?" asked Sam as everyone else continued watching or playing the game. Loki was entertaining Tara, Janna and Jackson while Emie kept John amused. Faith and Spike started a game of pool.

"Well, you might go crazy but sanity's overrated anyways," answered Dawn. She got a smile from him so she counted it as a win. "So…you're Adam and Xander's brother?"

"Yeah, Dad finally told us about Adam last week. He didn't know where Xander was so we went to Adam's house and we find Xander anyways and I feel like my head's going to explode from everything I've learned today," answered Sam.

"Sounds about right if your luck is anything like Xander's. So…what's your persuasion?" asked Dawn causing Sam to look at her as if she'd grown another head.

"Huh?"

"Sorry, I meant what's your Talent? I know Adam and Xander's Talents and we all kinda felt your brother's earlier. They have some overlap and I was curious about where you fell in the Talent spectrum, Seeing, Feeling, Healing, or Magic," explained Dawn.

"I get visions so Seeing, but Faith didn't mention Magic as a talent earlier," answered Sam very curious about a what she would say next.

"Magic's kinda confusing. Almost everyone can do basic spells with enough practice but there are some people that can do the big stuff without issue because it runs in their family lines and you have people like me that can do a certain type of magic easily. I can create portals without a lot of effort my part. Willow on the other hand is a full blown witch as well as Talented. She does spells and she has a lot of power. Most of the witches I know can do spells but don't have a particular skill like mine that they can do without a spell. A friend of our that died was a Talented witch that could see aura's as well as cast standard spells," explained Dawn.

"Okay, I can see how that could be confusing. Faith gave us a general overview on the other Talents earlier but would you mind giving me the long version?" asked Sam.

"Sure, but we should probably take this somewhere else," answered Dawn as she stood. Sam stood, followed her out of the game room and into a room furnished with two comfortable looking couches and four armchairs around a glass coffee table.

"The kids aren't allowed in here so what do you want to know?" asked Dawn after she sat down across from Sam.

"I'm pretty sure I understand Healing so Seeing or Feeling?" replied Sam.

"Seeing is kind of a misnomer because it includes telekinesis and telepathy as well. You get visions of the future right?" when he nodded Dawn continued, "So you're a precog seer but Xander sees magic so he's still got a Seeing ability but he's not a seer. Adam has a precog Seeing Talent that only works when he's aiming a long distance weapon. Our friend Cordy is a precog seer as well but there are also seers that see present and past. Present time seers are slightly rarer than precogs and past seers are the rarest but some seers have all three or a combination of two. There's also a type of seer that gets visions when they touch things. We include telekinesis and telepathy in the Seeing branch because they're mind gifts. They're the main active gifts in the Seeing branch with almost all of the other Seeing Talents being passive."

"Active and passive?" repeated Sam questioningly.

"Active gifts are under your conscious control like my portals and passive gifts can't be turned off or on at will. Seers aren't always seeing something but the ability to See is always on. There isn't an off switch with the passive gifts. There are a few active abilities that deal with Seeing like illusionists, compellers and astral projectors but they're very rare," explained Dawn.

Sam took a moment to process before saying, "Okay, I'm pretty sure I got all of that. What about the Feeling Talents?"

"Just like the Seeing branch a lot of the Feeling Talents are passive. There are touch empaths which can touch an item like a stuffed animal and sense that it was beloved or they can touch a wall in a home and feel if the people living there are happy, scared, angry or lonely. And there are also touch empaths that can only feel other people's emotions when they are touching them. There are two types of what we call full Empaths. The first type is totally passive just being able to sense emotions. The second type has the passive gift plus the active ability of projecting emotions onto others. For both types the passive gift is always on. They can create shields to block out the outside emotions but they can't turn off the ability which actually makes it the most difficult Talent to live with. There are levels of ability with all four types of empaths. It can range from being able to feel only the strongest of emotions like hate or love all the way down to feelings of indifference," explained Dawn.

"Faith mentioned Overload and from what she said it sounded the worse for those with the Feeling Talents," commented Sam.

Dawn's expression saddened as she answered, "It is. If their shields collapse and they're not alone they feel everything everyone around them is feeling. Imagine a kid whose talent just manifested, his parents are in the middle of a nasty divorce and I mean nasty. They hate each other but they're still living together because they can't afford to live apart, his little sister's too young to understand what's going on but she's terrified at all the screaming. He doesn't have an escape because everyone around him is angry or hateful or terrified and his emotions are being overwritten by theirs. Full empaths have the highest rate of suicide. Feeling everything people around you feel is very hard on them especially the ones that can't instinctually shield. It's not so bad for the ones that manage that on their own but for the ones that for whatever reason can't shield on their own they generally kill themselves as an escape. We try to find them before that happens but sometimes we're too late."

Sam's heart clenched painfully as he placed Dean in the kid's place with him and their dad fighting instead of parents. Oh yeah, Dean deserved a giant friggin apple pie for being the best big brother/son in existence, putting up with everything they'd thrown at him over the years. He also finally realized why Dean had never bothered to argue against orders form their dad. Dean might not have known the actual reason for the order but he'd been aware of the emotions behind the order. He could even remember one time when Dean had tried to explain it but he hadn't been very good at listening back then. He'd learned more things about Dean today than the last twenty years combined and the more he learned the worse he felt.

"And now I feel like the worst brother on the planet," muttered Sam.

"You're not the worst brother on the planet. Trust me I know bad sibling behavior. Ignorance and self-centeredness aren't great but they're normal younger sibling behaviors," Dawn's voice got softer as she went on, "and you never ripped him out of heaven after he died for you. We did that to Buffy. She forgave us eventually but it took a long time for her to be happy again."

"That doesn't actually make me feel better and now I kinda want to go apologize to Dean but he hates chick-flick moments and he'll play it off as nothing but I've pretty much spent my whole life ignoring or arguing or annoying the hell out him and he still takes care of me," admitted Sam. He felt exhausted. Today had started early and was the third most emotionally painful day of his life and the second had only happened two weeks ago so he was feeling like total shit.

"That's what the best ones do." Dawn stood up again, held a hand out to Sam and said, "Come on I'll show you to a guestroom you can lie down in. You look like you could use a nap or maybe a mini coma."

Sam took her hand, let her help him to his feet and said, "A mini coma sounds pretty good right now."

She left him at the door to an actual guest suite with three bedrooms and a shared common room. Each of the bedrooms had attached bathrooms and king sized beds. Sam managed to take off his shoes before passing out on the most comfortable bed he'd ever laid on.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

AN: sorry if i forgot to mention it but this has a slight cross over with Leverage. the Scoobies and co know and sometimes hang out with the leverage crew because in my head Lindsey from Angel is Eliot's twin brother and he didn't die when Lorne shot him. Lindsey has been hanging out with the Leverage crew. hopefully that explains any confusion from the mention of Parker.

AN: The Scoobies never correctly dispelled the joining spell they used to defeat Adam because it hadn't been meant to be used with an actual empath as the heart. The Sunnydale Hellmouth had been strong enough to scramble its effects so by the time they actually realized the joining was still in affect it was permanent. It really hadn't changed much for the Scoobies other than the ability to talk to each other mind to mind and knowing each other's emotions but they had to be on the same continent for the bonds to function properly. They weren't entirely sure how Dawn got added because she hadn't existed yet but no one was complaining. They'd added Faith, Cordelia, Spike and Connor to the bond over the years because it was useful and the perks outweighed the cons.

Xander named everyone in the room and told Dean a bit about them seeing as he hadn't gotten an actual introduction to them yet. Then they watched Sam and Dawn leave for a serious discussion but decided to continue watching the kids. Faith was kicking Spike's ass at the pool table which amused Xander with the teasing ammunition. He knew it was just luck at this point because Faith and Spike were about evenly matched normally and they never usually beat the other by more than a ball or two. They watched Adam and Niaira win the tournament with Jesse and Connor coming in second and third respectively. The kids were chatting with John now that the tournament was over.

"Want to go rescue Dad?" asked Xander, he could see that John's eyes were starting to glaze over from the craziness that was his family. He looked exhausted and slightly pained even if he was doing a good job covering it.

"Nah, let him suffer. Some time with your kids and Adam won't kill him, and it might actually remind him he's a father/grandfather not a drill sergeant/super-Hunter," answered Dean.

"Okay, you know him best," agreed Xander as Dean's stomach rumbled. Xander grinned, stood and said. "Let's go feed you."

"What kind of food?" asked Dean as he followed Xander back up to the study.

"Pretty much anything you can think of and pie," answered Xander remembering his brothers obsession with pie as a child and hoping it hadn't changed.

Dean perked right up at the magic word and asked, "Pie? What kind of pie? You won't try to make me eat healthy before the pie will you?"

"What's not healthy about pie? It has fruit and yummy goodness," at Dean's disbelieving look Xander continued, "Pie's good for the soul. Don't get me wrong we have the healthy stuff but we also have the heart stopping grease out your pores and coma inducing sugary stuff that might just kill you because the girls burn through a hell of a lot of calories a day. You're a grown man and what you eat is your decision. You can eat an entire pie if you want but try not to do that in front of the kids. Bad example and all that crap."

"Sammy keeps trying to get me to eat rabbit food. Apparently college was bad for his taste buds and memory. Seriously, it's like he thinks I don't know how to eat healthy when I'm the one that always made sure he ate his damn fruits and vegetables as a kid. I know dinner food isn't great for you but dinner salads are totally worse," complained Dean with a shudder. He didn't trust salads from a bag and veggies cooked all day in a steam table were nasty.

"That I actually have to agree with you on. They never wash bagged salads and I'm pretty sure I've seen a waitress just dig in with her hands without washing them first," agreed Xander.

"I've spent a lot of time with waitresses and I know that most of them do that," added Dean.

"You ever tell Sam that?" asked Xander as they arrived in the industrial grade kitchen.

"Nope, if he's going to nag me about my eating choices I'm going to let him suffer," answered Dean with a smirk.

Xander had missed Dean the most. Mama Mary dying had hurt but Dean hadn't died he'd just been out of reach and that had hurt much more. He'd kinda given up on their dad and he'd only spent one summer with Sam when he was barely more than a new born but Dean had been his little mini me. He followed him around and looked up to him and they'd had four summers together as brothers. He laughed and said, "That's a big brother's prerogative."

Dean looked around the kitchen. Faith had told him there were about thirty people living here so the fact that it was huge wasn't that much of a surprise. The kitchen had a ten range stove top, three separate ovens, three microwaves, an industrial dishwasher, an actual counter top griddle, a walk in pantry and lots of counter space. The walk in fridge next to the walk in freezer was a bit surprising though.

"What did you want? I'm not picky and I've learned the basics so as long as you don't expect an eight course meal we are good to go," offered Xander.

"What's available to choose?" asked Dean.

"Sandwiches, burgers, braughts, frozen pizzas and I'm pretty sure we still have some barbecue pulled pork sandwiches and barbeque chicken left from lunch earlier," answered Xander.

"Wings, legs or breasts?" asked Dean.

"Three breast, two legs and a handful of wings," answered Xander from inside the fridge.

"The wings and a pulled pork sandwich," decided Dean after a moment's contemplation.

"Want a corn on the cob, some bacon wrapped asparagus or a baked potato?" asked Xander.

"Bacon wrapped asparagus," answered Dean. At Xander's raised eyebrow he added, "It's got bacon and the added bonus of probably turning my piss green."

"A man after my own heart," said Xander as he threw together a plate for Dean and one for himself and popped them in the microwaves. "Want your bun toasted?"

"Sure," answered Dean, "You keep spoiling me like this and I'll never leave."

Xander snorted and said, "Dude, there are five guys and four boys, five if you count Adam, that live here and twenty or so females, we might actually pay you to stay."

"Sounds like a good deal. I'll think about it," replied Dean with a grin.

The microwaves dinged and Xander grabbed the steaming plates. He handed Dean's to him and they sat at the table situated in the corner of the kitchen.

After they finished eating their desserts, Dean started yawning. Xander could tell he was running on fumes so he said, "You look like about as tired as I felt after Jesse was born and I'm pretty sure Sam's already passed out in a guestroom."

Dean was so tired he didn't even protest. He quietly followed Xander to the guest suite.

"Go to sleep, I'll wake you up for dinner," said Xander as he left the guest suite.

Dean checked in on Sam before heading to the middle bedroom. He kicked off his shoes, socks and jeans, clad only in boxers and t-shirt he dropped onto the bed and was asleep before his head hit the pillow. He hadn't even noticed that Xander hadn't gone very far.

In fact Xander was leaning on the wall just next to the door of the guest suite. The fact that Dean hadn't felt him was proof on just how worn out he was. It wasn't even just his loss of control earlier; Dean was exhausted and almost completely burnt out. The only reason he'd even lost control was sheer exhaustion. Dean had shields and knew one of the two best ways to rebuild them. He wasn't a kid just coming into his gift, he was a grown man that had lived with his gift for over twenty years. Xander was pissed that his little brother was on the verge and the only reason he hadn't taken that finale step was because of the damn order to take care of Sammy that John had given to him when he was four. Dean 'felt' about as bad off as Xander himself had been during the whole First fiasco and Xander was more than willing to lay the blame entirely at John's feet. Sure, he'd given four year old Dean a purpose but it was like sticking a band aid on a knife wound. Dean might not have bleed to death but John hadn't done anything to lessen the scarring either.

If he was honest with himself he knew John hadn't been aware of the real problem and the true reason he was pissed at the man was the way he'd raised Dean and Sam. Dean shouldn't have had the responsibility of raising Sam on his shoulders ever. Protecting Sam like a big brother should, would have been enough to bring him out of his catatonia and John had dropped the ball in his quest of vengeance. Dean hiding his ability was more telling than anything else. Normally when they run into Talented children under the age of ten their families know about the Talent. They may teach their kids not to tell anyone and they may deny it but they always knew. Little kids don't hide their abilities from their families unless they're abused. The abuse didn't have to be physical either; emotion abuse and neglect were enough of a motivator for Talented kids to hide their gifts. There were families like Tara's that abuse the kids that show Talent but the Maclay's were a hateful, ignorant family of Hunters that saw everything in black and white not caring that the world was made up of shade of grays. Dean shouldn't have felt the need to hide his ability.

Xander's Talents had a weird habit of merging together and giving him more information than just the emotions others were feeling. Sometimes he got to See just why those emotions were being felt. In the five minutes Xander had been able to talk with all three before Dean had lost control, he could feel that Sam was just as worn out as Dean was. He was physically exhausted, still heart broken by the death of his girl, still adjusting to his gift, confused as hell, slightly hysterical and angry at his father for a lot of different things: not telling him about his brothers, kicking him out for choosing to go to college, abandoning them, training them to be Hunters instead of letting them be kids, just not being there when they needed him and for keeping them in the dark were just some of the reasons.

Strangely, Sam hadn't really been angry at Dean for anything. Sure, he'd been confused why Dean hadn't told him about Xander and he'd been surprised about Dean's Talent but not angry at Dean. He'd been angry at himself for not noticing and guilty. His guilt had gotten worse the longer he talked with Dawn, strong enough that Xander had been able to feel it clear as day across the manor. Dean's shields had been up high enough to keep him from sensing it then but he'd have to talk to Sam about that soon, preferably before Dean regained consciousness.

He had no intention of actually waking Dean for dinner; he needed the sleep too badly for that. Sam needed the sleep as well but he also needed food. Both of his middle brothers were looking a bit too thin at the moment, all whipcord muscle over bone without the necessary layer of adipose tissue.

Buffy, Cordy, Faith, Willow, Kennedy, Dawn, Connor and Spike found Xander just as he was making the decision to wake Sam in a few hours to feed and talk with him.

"You doing okay?" asked Buffy while they headed to they headed to the room that Dawn had talked to Sam in earlier. She'd gotten the low down from Willow earlier.

"Yeah, where's my Dad?" asked Xander. John had been with the kids earlier but Faith, Spike, Dawn and Connor had been there and he wasn't sure if he liked the idea of John being alone with the kids.

"Adam took him to Keely after Jackson poked him," answered Faith.

Xander snorted, Jackson had picked up poking injured people from Parker as well as pick pocketing and a fascination for air vents.

When they arrived at what the kids had named 'the grown-ups' lounge they sat down and got comfortable. Kennedy, Willow and Xander sat on one couch with Faith on the arm rest next to Xander even though there was enough room for her to sit on the couch as well. Cordy, Dawn and Buffy were on the other couch with Connor and Spike in two of the armchairs.

"Xander?" intoned Faith questioningly. Everyone knew what she was asking and was glad that she was the one doing the asking.

"After my step-mom died everything changed. He bailed and the older I got the less I thought I'd ever see him or Dean and Sam again. He sent signed custody papers when I turned eleven so I gave up on him," explained Xander. The truth was that he'd kinda forgotten about John.

"Blighter shouldn't have left you on a Hellmouth. Not when he was making a name for himself as a Hunter and dragging your brothers along for the ride. Winchester blood attracts a lot of attention in the demon world just like the blood of the rest of the old Hunting Families, it's why you're such a demon magnet," commented Spike.

"How come you've never mentioned that before?" asked Xander.

"Never been close enough to John Bloody Winchester to get his scent before, knew you weren't Harris's kid but you could have been a lost Campbell or a Harvelle for all that I could tell before today. I was waiting to tell you that your dad wasn't your dad until I could milk it for all its taunting worth but by the time that came around you'd grown on me," answered Spike.

"Aww you wuv me," teased Xander.

Spike countered with, "You're like a fungal infection. Kinda annoying and you just won't go away."

"You still wuv me," returned Xander with a grin.

Spike rolled his eyes but didn't deny it. Xander was about as close to a little brother as he'd ever had and they all knew it.

"Okay, back the actual issue, what are we doing about them?" asked Connor.

"Nothing. Dean and Sam need a break. Both of them have been running on fumes and Dean's about this close," Xander held his index and thumb about an inch apart, "to taking himself out permanently."

"What'd he do?" asked Willow.

"He might not have a conscious death wish but he was reckless enough to electrocute himself while taking out the fugly of the week a couple months ago. Damaged his heart badly enough that the doctors gave him a few weeks to live," answered Xander. He knew that Dean wasn't even aware of how close to the edge he was.

"How they get around that?" asked Dawn.

"Sam found a 'faith healer' whose wife had a reaper under control. They didn't figure that part out until after Dean was healed," answered Xander.

"How long has he been on the verge?" asked Buffy softly. Almost everyone here had been on the verge at least one time in the past and the longer you were on the verge the harder it was to step back.

Buffy had been on the verge three times. The first time had only lasted a day or so and ended with Xander giving her CPR. The second time she'd taken a swan dive off a tower to save Dawn. The third time had lasted the longest and had only ended when Dawn and her had been fighting Willow's golems while she tried to destroy the planet. It had taken a while but she was happy with her life and wouldn't change it. Realizing she wanted to be there to see Dawn grow up had been the first step back from the ledge.

Connor had been on the verge for most of the two years after he'd made his way back to this dimension. Angel had taken over the LA branch of Wolfram and Hart to give him a second chance and it had worked. He remembered everything from both lives and making peace with himself had been the first step back from the ledge.

Dawn had been on the verge after the whole Key thing had come out. Buffy making her promise to live for her had been her first step back from the ledge.

Willow had been on the verge after Tara was killed and Xander had made her take that first step back from the ledge.

Spike had been on the verge after he'd gotten his soul back and it had taken quite a while to take that first step back. Hell, he hadn't actually stepped back until he'd gotten shanshu'd. He'd pretty much been functioning on the ledge until then.

Faith had been on the ledge from the moment Kakistos killed her first Watcher until she tried to get Angel to kill her. Turning herself in had been her first step back from the ledge.

Xander had hidden it the best out of all of them. He'd been on the verge from the time that he'd staked Jesse until the day Jesse had been born. None of them had ever realized just how close to the edge he'd actually been until he'd come back from Africa happy with Faith, Niaira and baby Jesse. Getting Dylan a few months later had been icing on the cake.

"Long enough but Dean's harder to read then most people. I'm not getting as much of the details as I normally get. I've gotten exhaustion, surprise, happiness, exhaustion, anger at dad, exhaustion, relief, hunger, happiness and more exhaustion," answered Xander.

"You think he's going to be okay?" asked Faith.

"I need to talk with Sam and Dad because Dean will go with them if they decide to leave but he really needs a break. He's too tired not to be heroically suicidal and if anything happens to Sam he won't hesitate to do something stupid. But if we can keep them all here for a while we should be able to pull him back from the edge," replied Xander.

"Good. Be terrible to lose such a pretty piece of man candy," commented Faith lightening the mood.

Dawn, Cordy and Buffy perked up at Faith's comment. They hadn't gotten a chance to see Dean. Faith sent everyone but Xander the image of Dean as he leaned on the hood of the impala and talked with the kids.

Dawn and Cordelia licked their lips at the yummy goodness that had appeared in their heads.

"Damn, kinda want to be single for a couple hours," announced Buffy. Everyone laughed while she blushed sheepishly and asked, "I said that out loud didn't I?"

"Yep, but he's definite man candy so you're forgiven," answered Willow.

"Hey!" exclaimed Kennedy.

"What? I love you but I'm not blind honey," countered Willow.

"What's the younger one's deal?" asked Cordy changing the subject before the teasing could start.

"He's a Seer, started manifesting just before his girlfriend was killed by Azazel," answered Xander.

"Are we talking 'we just started dating girlfriend' or more?" asked Dawn.

"Dean said Sam had bought a ring and was going to ask her to marry him so definitely more," answered Xander.

"Damn, your family has really shitty luck," commented Connor.

"Yep, goes both ways though," agreed Xander.

"Do we need to watch him like Dean?" asked Cordy insightfully.

"No, I'm not sure what Dean did but Sam's emotional state is the best of the three of them as of right now. He needs closure but he's healing. You should probably talk to him though; I pretty sure he'd love to talk to someone that understands what visions are like," replied Xander.

"Sounds like a plan," offered Cordy.

They spent a few more minutes talking before breaking up and heading their separate ways until dinner.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

After dinner Faith, Buffy, Caridad, Rona, Kennedy and Vi paired up with the six teenage slayers and took them on patrol. Xander put Jesse and Jackson to bed while Willow got Emie, Tara and Janna to sleep. After the younger kids were asleep Xander found Adam laying on the couch in the study.

"How are you dealing with all this today?" asked Xander as he sat in an armchair.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet and I don't know how to feel," answered Adam.

"You're angry though," announced Xander.

"Aren't you?" returned Adam.

"Not for the same reasons," countered Xander.

"Why shouldn't I be angry? He lied to me about who he is, what he does for a living, the fact that I have brothers," stated Adam.

"I know Adam. I'm not saying you shouldn't be angry," started Xander only to be cut off by Adam.

"You know I used to pretend you were my dad when I was little. I knew you weren't but you treated me the same as your kids and it was so easy to pretend. I wanted that so bad back then but then I met dad and I liked him. Sure, he wasn't around much but he did the weekend dad thing like Charlie's dad did and I was okay with it. I had a dad and I thought he cared," ranted Adam. He was on his feet and pacing by that point.

"Let's get this clear He Does Care. He loves you Adam. He wouldn't have come if he didn't. Trust me I know he does," countered Xander.

"Then why didn't he tell me about my brothers? Why didn't he tell me he was a Hunter? Why didn't he tell me the truth?" yelled Adam.

"He wanted you to have a normal childhood Adam. He couldn't do that with Dean and Sam but he was trying with you. You have a mom that loves you so he could get away with being a part time dad. He didn't have to drag you along for the ride like he did with them. It doesn't mean he loves you anyless. You know just as well as I do why he didn't tell you he was a Hunter," answered Xander.

"That doesn't explain why he didn't tell me about you, Dean and Sam," argued Adam.

"I don't know Adam other than the fact that he had no idea where I was, Dean was already a Hunter in his own right and apparently Sam was at college and not talking to either of them. I'm not excusing him, but I can see where he was coming from," offered Xander.

"What about you? Doesn't all this bother you?" asked Adam calmer now than he'd been. Xander had a way of always being able to make him see logic. He wasn't projecting either because Adam had enough Healing Talent and training to know when his emotions were being manipulated.

"I didn't know about the Hunting but I knew they were out there and you're already family so really not much to deal with on that front. The rest is like par for the course of my life," answered Xander with a shrug.

"I feel like his mistake," whispered Adam.

Xander got up from the armchair and joined Adam on the couch, pulling him half onto his lap and holding him. Adam tensed for a moment before clinging to Xander like he was the only thing holding him afloat in the middle of the ocean.

"Accident, Adam, not a mistake. You think Faith and I planned Dylan? We had hey we're not dead yet sex during an apocalypse attempt, doesn't mean we don't love her or that she was a mistake. Shit Adam, we didn't plan any of them, but they aren't mistakes. They're accidental blessings just like you. You're Adam, my little brother, beloved son of Kate Milligan, best friend to my daughters and surrogate big brother to the rest of them. Don't ever think you were a mistake," chided Xander gently.

Adam just clung to him and cried; letting everything he'd suppressed during the day out. Xander simply held him through the emotional hurricane that was a teenage boy struggling with life changing knowledge.

Out in the hallway, standing right next to the slightly ajar door of the study, were John and Dawn. Dawn had been leading him to the guest suite when they heard Adam begin to yell. She quietly closed the door the rest of the way and motioned for John to follow her. She led him to the guest suite and motioned him to the couch when they arrived.

John sank down onto the couch and held his face in his hands. He hadn't ever meant to make any of his sons feel that way. None of them were mistakes and the only thing he regretted was how shitty of a father he'd been to all of them. He shouldn't have abandoned Xander. He shouldn't have made Dean take so much responsibility for Sam that he stopped being a child himself. He shouldn't have forced Sam into Hunting when he knew Sam hated the life. He should have been there more for Adam. 'I will be there for all of them from now on' swore John to himself.

"You know my dad bailed pretty much the day he signed the divorce papers. My mom died when I was Adam's age and he didn't even bother to come to the funeral. He signed over custody of me to Buffy. She was twenty at the time and she died a few months later saving me. They brought her back five months later but she'd been in Heaven and it hurt her so much to be back on earth that she wasn't really there. It took a long time for her to want to live again and be there. Giles left, he came back eventually but he still left. Tara was killed by an asshole that was aiming for Buffy and Willow went off the deep end. Tara was her soul mate and she tried to destroy the planet to end the pain. Willow left, for magical detox and re-education but she still left. Spike died saving us, he came back but," she paused to meet John's eyes before continuing, "Xander's never left me, not once. I guess it was because he knew what it felt like to be abandoned even if they hadn't done it willingly. So I'm only going to tell you this just once. If you hurt My Xander again I'm going to make it slow and more painful than anything you've ever been through before and then I'll give you to Spike and Willow. Same goes for if you hurt Adam again," threatened Dawn.

The cold, flat stare she sent him cause a shiver to run down his spine.

"And if you try to do something heroically stupid I'll help Willow resurrect your ass and we'll all take turns kicking the shit out of you," added Dawn before he could say anything.

"I'm going to try and that's as much as I can promise. I hurt them again and I won't even try to stop you," promised John.

"Good. Now go to bed the midgets wakeup early," replied Dawn as she made her way out of the suite.

John stood warily then checked on Sam and Dean before heading to bed. Exhaustion finally caught up with him and he was out cold a few minutes later.

John's dreams were filled with what ifs. He dreamed of actually being there for all four of his sons. He dreamed about Dean teaching Adam pickup lines while Sam looked on with mock disdain and Xander laughed. He dreamed about seeing all of his son's older and happily married with a bunch of children each. He dreamed about walking his granddaughters down the aisle on their wedding days and vowed to be their when it happened in real life. He dreamed dreams he'd given up after Mary had been killed and had the best night of sleep he'd had in twenty three years.

Sam was woken by a screaming bladder a little while after John fell asleep. Waking up in a comfortable bed in a very nice if slightly generic room was disorientating until he remembered where he was and everything that had happened. He got out of the bed and made his way to the bathroom.

After he his bladder was emptied and his hands were washed he was too hungry to go back to sleep. He heard a door open and went to see who was there. He opened his door and nearly ran into Xander.

Xander jumped backwards and said "Sorry, I was coming to wake you up for food."

Sam's stomach rumbled loudly and he smiled sheepishly.

"Follow me to the land of sustenance, young giant," teased Xander leading Sam to the kitchen.

When they arrived at the kitchen Xander said, "I hope you like chicken casserole and vegetable stir fry."

"Sounds great," replied Sam. Xander motioned him to take a seat while he went to get the plate he'd saved for Sam during dinner. A minute in the microwave later and Sam had a steaming plated of delicious looking home cooked food in front of him. He dug in enthusiastically.

Xander let him eat just watching in amusement as Sam devoured everything on the plate. He was glad he made the plate slayer portioned.

"Want dessert? We have chocolate cake, apple pie, watermelon, strawberries, pineapple slices, chocolate pudding, banana cream pie and ice cream," offered Xander.

"No thanks. I think I'll burst if I eat any more," replied Sam leaning back in his chair and rubbing his stomach. "You didn't just want to just feed me did you?"

"No, I needed to talk to you but figured food first wouldn't hurt," responded Xander.

Sam sighed and said, "I'm all ears."

"Umm, don't take this the wrong way but I'm going to be blunt. You need to stop with the guilt fest you're having," stated Xander. Sam gave him an incredulous look so he continued, "I know it more complicated than just telling you to stop but Dean doesn't want or need you feeling guilty."

"That's easy for you to say but-" started Sam.

Xander spoke right over Sam's interruption, "He's got enough guilt from not telling you. Yours will creep in and make it harder for him to sort out whose feelings they actually are. It's kinda ingrained for him to keep his shields keyed to you. He pretty much blocks everyone but you and Dad totally out for the most part. Dad's only keyed in enough for him to know he's nearby but Dean's got you pretty much built into his shields."

"Why would he do that?" asked Sam frowning.

"I do the same thing with my friends and the kids. It's my very own personal safety net. The younger ones are completely keyed in because I need to know they're okay. Like earlier when Jesse and Emie were playing and Emie accidently pushed Jesse harder than she should have. I knew Emie was upset and I was already on my way to them when Jesse came looking for me. The older my kids get the less I key them in but I don't completely block anyone I care about. Some days it's kinda hard to deal with but the tradeoff is totally worth it. Being able to know that they're alright is worth feeling everything they throw my way," answered Xander.

"Now I feel guilty again," stated Sam thinking about how Dean had told him he understood how he was feeling after losing Jess and he'd thrown it back in Dean's face.

"Sam! You've seriously got to stop that. It's not good for you or Dean. Do you honestly think Dean wants you to feel guilty?" asked Xander.

"No but I can't help it. How am I supposed to not feel guilty?" asked Sam in return.

"Just accept that you were a self-centered prat and move on because you're not that kid anymore and he knows it better than you do. Plus Dean's still Dean and he's not going to suddenly change because you know about his Talent. He's never going to be that guy that will talk about his feeling without the imminent threat of death hovering over him. He might be a little more vocal about what he's getting off other people but he's never going to sit down and tell you how he's feeling because he might be an empath but he's still a GUY," offered Xander.

"You don't seem to have that problem and neither do I," countered Sam.

Xander snorted then said, "Dude, I've been trained since kindergarten by one very determined redheaded daughter of physiologists and the rest of my girls since high school, like Pavlov's dog. I don't have the ability to not talk about my feelings by this point. Let me ask you this though. Why don't you have a problem talking about your feelings?"

Sam almost blew off the question as nonsense because his first thought had been he just didn't. His second thought was he used to. When he was younger he used to keep everything inside and he wouldn't talk about any of it. That had changed when he was about ten years old because Dean would rile him up enough to blow his top. Eventually he just gave up trying to keep things from Dean. Besides the perfunctory no chick flick moments spiel and light hearted teasing Dean always listened and tried to make shit better for him and mostly succeeded. After years of telling Dean everything he didn't have a problem talking to others. "That manipulative son of a bitch!"

"If we were cartoons there would be a light bulb above your head right now," commented Xander with a teasing grin.

Sam ignored Xander's teasing and said, "He refuses to talk about his feelings but he programed me to spill my guts. What the fuck?"

"He made sure you were as well adjusted as he could possibly make you and I think he did a pretty damn good job. So seriously quit with the guilt," answered Xander even though Sam's question had been rhetorical.

Sam snorted at the well-adjusted part but nodded. Xander was right, Dean wasn't going to change anytime soon and he didn't actually want him to. Dean being an empath didn't change anything but he vowed to himself to pay more attention to the things Dean didn't say.

"So we didn't get much of a chance to talk earlier," said Xander sounding kind of nervous to Sam.

"What did you want to know?" asked Sam feeling much better than he had before their conversation.

"You know I'm not really sure. I don't do the meet and greet very often anymore," answered Xander.

"Can I ask you a question? It's kinda personal," asked Sam.

"Go for it. I might not answer but I don't mind the asking," offered Xander.

"Faith said you're not married but why do both of you wear wedding rings?" asked Sam.

"A couple of the single and not so single moms kept harassing me. They wouldn't believe that I was happy with Faith even if we aren't married. We got matching rings and most of them assumed we got married so they stopped. The three that didn't stop got a talking to from pissed off pregnant Faith," answered Xander with a smirk. Faith could be very convincing when she felt like it.

Sam grinned after knowing Faith for less than a day he knew she loved Xander and their kids fiercely. There was no way she'd put up with soccer moms hitting on her boytoy.

"How long have you known about the supernatural?" asked Sam.

"Since sophomore year of high school so about sixteen years. What about you?" returned Xander.

"I was nine when Dean finally told me the truth. I mean I had suspicions before that but…" answered Sam trailing off.

"But you didn't want them to be true so denial land it was. We had an obituary column in our school paper but it wasn't until Willow almost got killed and Jesse got turned that it hit home for me," said Xander.

They talked about inconsequential things for another twenty minutes before Sam realized that Xander wasn't just staying up to get to know him better. He was waiting for someone if the fact that he kept glancing at the clock was any indication.

In the past hour Sam had learned that Xander; had been more of a demon magnet than he was, had a sense of humor that didn't quit, was more perceptive than anyone gave him credit for even without his talents, had an IQ of 145, took mostly advanced classes during high school but skated through with a C average and hadn't bothered to apply to college.

Xander learned that Sam; loved learning things, had gotten a full ride to Stanford even though he'd gone to sixteen different high schools, could barely change a tire, had more trouble translating Latin then Dean, enjoyed playing the straight man to Dean's funny man routine, knew Dean was smarted than he acted but didn't call him on it.

Dawn, Connor, Spike and Cordy joined them in the kitchen at eleven with a pack of playing cards.

"You want in Sam?" asked Dawn as she shuffled the deck. "We're playing five card draw."

"Sure," answered Sam.

Spike handed him a stack of chips and said, "We don't play for money we play for chores and favors. White chips are basic house related chores like laundry, dusting, cooking and vacuuming. Red chips are kid related chores like picking the buggers up, taking them places and babysitting them. Blue chips are supernatural related like taking a patrol, weapon maintenance and teaching the minis. Black chips are personal favors that you can't refuse. Five white chips match a red chip, five red for a blue, five blue for a black."

Sam nodded then glanced around the table and noted that everyone had twenty white chips, fifteen red, ten blue and five black.

Before they started playing Dawn made a few motions with her hands and muttered some words that were clearly not English or Latin. A slight glow appeared around them then disappeared.

"What was that?" asked Sam.

"Two things actually, the first part marked your chips as yours see SW, Xander's as XH and so forth for the rest of us. The second part was an anti-cheating spell. It evens the playing field. Xander can't read us, Spike and Connor can't hear our heart beats and you and Cordy won't get any hints from your Talent. Xander doesn't purposely cheat but Cordy, Spike and Connor do," answered Dawn.

Sam turned to Cordy and asked, "You get visions during poker games?"

Cordy snorted and said, "I've been banned from the Tropicana for life. But it's taken years to develop the amount of control I have. You probably wouldn't get anything other than vague intuition as new as you are to it."

Sam nodded then a thought struck him while they anted up, "That's why Dean's so good at poker."

"It's like dusting vamps. Fledges are easy, I could dust them as an untrained teenager. Childes are a bit more difficult but I can still usually handle them. Masters take skill though. The better a person is at poker the easier it is for them to stay blank even on an emotional level so at the professional level it's not much of a bonus," explained Xander.

"Says the member of the table that's banned from Las Vegas in its entirety," quipped Dawn.

"Not its entirety just the demon side and you were banned too," returned Xander as Dawn won the first hand.

"Yeah but I was banned because I was there with You and Faith not because of anything I actually did. I wasn't even old enough to gamble back then," responded Dawn.

Sam started to laugh when everyone focused on him he said, "Just trying to think of how you got banned from Vegas."

"The Demon World Poker Series being won by a human wasn't taken too well," answered Spike with a smug smirk. He'd won quite a lot of money that day.

"They banned you for winning?" asked Sam.

"No, they all tried to kill me after I won. Faith really didn't take that well and we got banned because of the massive amounts of property damage that followed," answered Xander.

"You make it sound like Faith was the only one doing damage but I'm pretty sure I remember you doing your fair share," added Spike.

"I wasn't blaming her I just meant that she was so pissed at them she encouraged me to have fun," answered Xander sheepishly.

"I can't wait for the ban to expire next month," announced Dawn as Connor won the second round.

They chatted and played five more rounds before things started to get heated. Xander, Cordy and Spike had almost twice as many chips as Dawn, Sam and Connor. Apparently the fact that they normally cheated didn't mean they weren't good at playing without the cheating. Dawn traded in one of her black chips for four blues, four reds, and five whites.

Sam won the seventh hand with three queens and a pair of twos, gaining a black piece from Cordy and Xander. He'd folded every previous time that black chips had been thrown.

By the time the slayers wandered into the kitchen from patrol, Sam still had one of Cordy's and Xander's black chips plus two of his own and one of Dawn's.

Xander had none of his own black chips left but he had two of Connor's, one of Dawn's, two of Spike's and one of Cordy's as well as one of Sam's.

Dawn had one of Sam's, one of Xander's, one of Cordy's and two of Spike's with none of her own left.

Spike had one of Xander's, one of Cordy's, two of Connor's and one of his own left.

Cordy ended up with one of Sam's, one of Dawn's, one of Connor's and two of Xander's.

Connor came out the clear loser having only one of Dawn's and one of Cordy's black chips.

Sam learned they played poker as a way to distract Xander from worrying about his girls and that the six teens only patrolled on Friday and Saturday night during the school year. During the school week the slayers that had already graduated high school patrolled. During summer they patrolled less often because the Scoobies hosted slayer summer camp and there just wasn't enough action for all of the minis to patrol every night.

He also learned that other than yearly apocalypse attempts Xander and Faith never patrolled on the same night. One of them was always home with the kids in case something happened to the other.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

AN: thank you to everyone that has reviewed and fav'd this. sorry it took so long to update.

The next morning Jesse made sure they didn't wake Dean or Sam when Jackson, Emie, Tara and Janna tried to wake Grandpa John up. At eight he was the ring leader of the kids. Their dad had told him not to wake their uncles up because they needed rest like he did after an apocalypse attempt. They were standing in a half huddle next to John as he slept.

"How we doing this?" asked Janna in a loud whisper that little kids used when they were trying to be sneaky.

"Uncle Connor says its creepy when we stare at him but that always wakes him up," offered Tara.

"We could just jump on him like we do with daddy," offered Jackson.

"I don't think we should do that. 'Member when we did that to Uncle Wesley when he was visiting," countered Emie.

"No jumping on anyone but Dad and our Moms and Aunt Dawn cause they're used to it," reminded Jesse.

"Squirt gun?" asked Jackson.

"Kinda mean for a first wake up call," countered Janna.

"Feather?" offered Emie.

John could barely suppress the urge to laugh at his grandchildren plotting how to wake him up right next to him. He'd woken up as soon as he heard the door to his room open. He was just happy he was facing away from them because he couldn't avoid the smile he was currently wearing.

"You could just ask if I'm awake," offered John as he rolled over to face the kids.

The startle giggles from Tara and Janna and surprised expressions on the other three faces was a balm to his battered heart.

"No fair grandpa. You're supposed ta be sleepin'," pouted Jackson.

John snatched Jackson up and started tickling him. Jackson giggled while his sisters helped their grandpa tickle him. Jesse watched with a smile before meeting his sisters' eyes and declaring war on their grandpa.

Dean smiled at the giggles and shouted declaration of war that came from next door. His bladder had woken him about an hour before. After taking care of that problem he'd taken a shower and changed into clean sleep pants and a t-shirt from his duffle bag that someone had been kind enough to bring in. Then he'd been content to just lay in bed soaking up the happiness that permeated the house. Their lives were dangerous but they took pleasure in the simple things. Deciding he might as well get up for the day he glanced in his father's room and smile before heading to where he felt Xander without the kids or his father noticing him.

In the kitchen Xander and Dawn were making breakfast. The slayers that had been out last night were still sleeping but not for much longer. The smell of bacon, sausage, eggs and pancakes would wake everyone before too long. Dean was the first to wander in.

"Good morning Dean," greeted Xander without taking his attention from the massive amounts of food before him. He was cooking pancakes and sausage while Dawn made various omelets and bacon.

"Morning," returned Dean absently as he checked out Dawn. Her hair was messy and she was wearing a Scooby Doo themed camisole and boxer set and she was still hot. Dean's little day dream about her legs wrapped around his hips up against a wall was interrupted by a wooden spoon to the back of his head.

"No sexy fantasies in the kitchen," rebuked Xander before turning back to his cooking.

Dawn smirked and said, "I don't mind. We can make it a real memory if you want."

Dean actually blushed at getting caught and her remark and asked, "I wasn't broadcasting was I?"

Dawn grinned at the blush on his face and answered, "Not enough for me to pick up on it if you were but you had the same look on your face that Xander and Faith get right before they drag each other off for-"

"Daaawwnie," whined Xander interrupting her.

"Xaaaannnndddeeerr," whined Dawn right back, "We're all grownups and he's yummy."

Xander rolled his eyes and said, "My little brother having a fantasy involving you is not something I want to see. Do whatever you want as long as I don't have to see it." Seeing Dawn's predatory look at Dean he added, "After you're done cooking."

Dawn pouted but returned to cooking, "You want an omelet or pancakes or both?"

"Both," answered Dean with a grin.

"What kind of omelet?" asked Dawn.

Dean looked at all the ingredients around Dawn before answering, "Cheese, onions, mushrooms and ham."

Dawn grinned and said, "Good, we'll both have onion breath."

Dean laughed. The three of them talked uninterrupted for twenty minutes while Dean ate his breakfast. Dean found that he enjoyed being around people that he didn't have to lie to or hide a part of himself from. Dawn was refreshingly open without coming off as a floozy. He had nothing against a willing bed-partner, most of them just wanted a fun night to remember but sometimes they were just as messed up as he was and looking for a release. It wasn't even his empathic ability either; by the time that he was twenty he'd gained decent control over it. But by that point sleeping around and being a flirt had become an ingrained part of the persona he wore around his dad and brother plus it was fun so he kept it up. Yesterday had been the first time in years that his shields had completely shattered.

People started to trickle into the kitchen in ones and two's, some of them grabbed plates and headed right back out. Buffy, Willow, Kennedy, Spike, Fred, Cordy and Faith sat at the kitchen table while the six teens that Dean had met yesterday and Adam came in carrying a second table and folding chairs which they set up next to the actual kitchen table. They grabbed plates, sat down and started eating.

Dean caught Adam's eyes and raised an eyebrow in question. He hadn't got much of a chance to talk with Adam yesterday but he really did want to make sure the kid was alright.

Adam held his gaze for a moment smiling hesitantly before turning his attention to Xander and asking, "Are we still paint balling today?"

"Yeah, but not until noon because Graham and the twins don't get back until ten," answered Xander.

Adam turned back to Dean and said, "You should join us. It's a lot of fun."

"Sounds like a plan," replied Dean with a grin.

"Think Sam will play?" asked Adam.

"If you ask him to he will," answered Dean. "Who's all playing?"

"Me, Faith, Buffy, Graham, Dawn, Connor, Spike, Caridad, Kennedy, Rona, Vi, Ariel, Alayna, Niaira, Dylan, Kyoko, Camila, Adam, Jesse, you and Sam while Willow referees," answered Xander.

"That's a lot of people," stated Dean.

Xander shrugged and said, "We normally play three teams of six, if Cordy plays we'll split into two teams of eleven and if she doesn't we'll play three teams of seven."

Cordy sent a glare at Xander for talking about her like she wasn't less than ten feet away from him.

"Dad would probably play," offered Dean.

"Nope, Keely won't let him. He might be healed but she nixed all the fun stuff. He's on light activities only today," countered Adam.

Dean snorted and said, "He's not going to like that."

Dawn and Xander ate at the counter while Dean got drafted into taking a turn cooking. The teens finished before the adults and put their plates in the dishwasher before heading off on their own again.

John arrived with the little ones after the teens left. Dean made John a plate without talking to him. The kids all asked for pancakes so Dean made silver dollar sized pancakes for them. Jackson got the biggest kick out of them but his siblings enjoyed them too.

The kids dragged John off as soon as he finished eating.

Vi took pity on Sam when she found him wandering around the manor like a lost puppy and lead him to the kitchen.

"Mornin' Sammy," greeted Dean affectionately.

"It's Sam, jerk," returned Sam.

"You love it, bitch," responded Dean with a grin.

Sam rolled his eyes in annoyance. Of course Dean would be able to tell that he liked being called Sammy. Being called Sammy reminded him of better times so yeah he kinda liked it but it was still embarrassing to be called Sammy as if he was a five year old not a twenty three year old.

Dean handed Sam a plate of food before he could say anything in response.

"You two are just adorable," stated Cordelia rolling her eyes at the brothers' antics.

"I know I am," remarked Dean sweetly.

After breakfast Dean and Sam were dragged off by Adam to get a look at the paintball course. Buffy left to pick up her husband and children. Cordelia, Dawn, Fred and Willow when to the bat cave to work on creating more ammo for the Colt. Faith, Connor, Spike and Kennedy herded the little ones off to self-defense practice leaving John alone until Xander found him.

John and Xander just stared at each other for a few minutes trying to think of anything to say.

Xander hadn't really come up with a game plan because he figured he could wing it. He did some of his best talking during spur of the moment things. The problem he was having was he wasn't as mad as he was expecting to be or even really upset. He was who he was because his father hadn't been there.

John didn't know what to say either. I'm sorry seemed too contrived but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

They'd been alone for a full ten minutes before Xander started to laugh and said, "You'd think we'd have something to say after twenty years."

John snorted and said, "I'm sorry doesn't make up for it no matter how much I say it."

Xander smiled sadly at his father and said, "It doesn't but I wouldn't be me if I hadn't grown up the way I did. I'm pretty sure Mom would have tried to foist me off on you a long time ago if you hadn't sent the papers and if that had happened I wouldn't have my family. I made peace with it a long time ago. I already have the father figure that I want and I'm too old to actually need you to be my dad again but how about we try friends?"

John was amazed that Xander was being so calm. Dean would have punched scratch that Dean had decked him in the hotel room the day he'd been released from the hospital and so had Sam. Both of them had yelled and screamed and raged at him before falling back on Dean's specialty of silence that hurt worse than all the rest combined. At least when they had been yelling they'd acknowledged his existence. Dean still hadn't said a word to him besides asking him 'why' before he broke down yesterday. Sam was speaking to again but Dean was silent and he hadn't even seen Adam yet. It took John a minute to realize that Xander was a grown man with children of his own, not a twenty something bachelor or a teenage boy. He couldn't compare them.

Sure, there might have been some slight similarities but all of them were their own person and none of them were very much like him. He didn't know Xander very well but the fact that his friends and family loved him enough to threaten John said more than enough about the type of man his oldest son had grown to be. Adam was a strange mix of Dean and Xander from before Mary's death. Knowing that Xander had unknowingly stepped in as surrogate dad when he hadn't been around was about as painful as it was relieving. Sam was the closest personality wise, but he'd managed to retain just a bit of the innocence and kindness and compassion that John had lost that night. Dean might be a good soldier but he was nothing like John no matter how much Sam claimed he was. Dean was pure Mary. Sam had never bothered to look beneath the surface and John himself had looked away every time he'd gotten a glimpse.

John knew that no matter how much Sam claimed to hate hunting he couldn't actually give it up. Sam had tried to live an apple pie life but it had only taken five minutes for Dean to get him back in the game. John now knew that Sam hadn't been running from hunting he'd been looking for acceptance and John had failed him once again.

He was getting a second chance with all of his sons and he wasn't going to fuck up this time so he said, "I'd like that but I should warn you I'm a stubborn asshole."

Xander laughed and said, "Most of my friends are at times so I've got experience dealing with stubborn asses." Xander turned serious before he continued, "You have to get your priorities straightened out though. Vengeance for the dead isn't as important as living for the survivors. I learned that at sixteen but it's something you need to understand. It shouldn't be about killing monsters it should be about saving lives. The longer you're in it for vengeance the more of yourself you lose until you're no better than them."

John didn't know what to say to that. Xander was right but he had spent twenty three years trying to find and kill Azazel he couldn't give up now.

"We're still killing the bastard. Dawn, Willow, Fred and Cordy are making more ammo for the Colt right now," explained Xander.

"They can do that?" asked John.

"Yeah, I explained what I saw and Wills said she can duplicate it as long as the others help," answered Xander.

"We need to come up with a plan for taking the bastard out," said John.

"Not today. They need a break. Let them have fun and bond with Adam. Tomorrow the ammo should be ready and we can make with the planning. One day won't make a difference in taking out Azazel but it will make a difference for Dean and Sam. They're almost burnt out and one day of fun will go a long way in preventing a totally burn out," responded Xander.

John hesitantly agreed to let them relax today even if he couldn't help worry that even one day would matter on the Azazel issue. But Xander was right about Dean and Sam being so close to burn out that one more day of hunting would push them over the edge and he wasn't willing to chance that.

Xander left John alone with his thoughts and joined Willow, Dawn, Fred and Cordy in the bat cave. John may have thought Xander wasn't taking the threat of Azazel seriously enough but he was. The kids were on lock down within the property wards and slayer patrols had been doubled. He was also trying to keep his brothers from being so worn out that they would make semi-suicidal decisions when the time came.


End file.
